De-icing - is there a better way?

Scaf

Member
Messages
6,513
I am a fan of copious amounts of warm water - out onto the drive, start the car, on with heated screens / seats / steering wheel then nip in to the house to fill a watering can and use the whole lot to clear the car. Been doing it for years and found it to be the best way.
If I am not on the drive (hotel) I just sit in the car and let the heaters do their magic -
 

Keano

Member
Messages
287
Towel across the window night before. Easier than faffing about with hot/boiling/tepid water
 

FIFTY

Member
Messages
3,100
I used to chuck a bucket of tepid water on the car and it worked fine.

Then someone told me about the risk of cracking the glass. Several years on I don't think it will be an issue as I have had a couple of bad stone chips in the windscreen that happened the day before turn into cracks with just an overnight frost. Don't think the water makes a huge difference at that point
 

JonW

Member
Messages
3,259
Thanks all,

I long for the kind of life where I have either a butler, a wife who wouldn’t murder me if I asked her to defrost my car, or no need to be rushing out to a train station when it is dark and ******* freezing... Alas, I’m not that lucky!

I will though inform my lovely wife that I need to sell my £3k Mini, and instead buy a £100k Range Rover for the station run. I wonder how that will go?
 

TimR

Member
Messages
2,656
I used to chuck a bucket of tepid water on the car and it worked fine.

Then someone told me about the risk of cracking the glass. Several years on I don't think it will be an issue as I have had a couple of bad stone chips in the windscreen that happened the day before turn into cracks with just an overnight frost. Don't think the water makes a huge difference at that point

Same happened to me recently...!
Annoyingly, my T5 will blow a fuse if you try and wash your screen whilst the washer fluid is still frozen...and thawing this can take a good while !
 

Oneball

Member
Messages
11,075
Thanks all,

I long for the kind of life where I have either a butler, a wife who wouldn’t murder me if I asked her to defrost my car, or no need to be rushing out to a train station when it is dark and *** freezing... Alas, I’m not that lucky!

I will though inform my lovely wife that I need to sell my £3k Mini, and instead buy a £100k Range Rover for the station run. I wonder how that will go?

Swimmingly, absolutely swimmingly!

On a serious note. Can you park up against the house or between two buildings? If I park my car on the drive between our house and next door’s it has to be properly cold, (Geordie girl wearing knickers cold), for the screen to freeze over.
 

D Walker

Member
Messages
9,827
I start my car, put heaters on etc. While it’s going I scrape the wife’s car, by the time I’ve done hers, mine is warming thru, and takes less time time to do mine.....
 

FIFTY

Member
Messages
3,100
Same happened to me recently...!
Annoyingly, my T5 will blow a fuse if you try and wash your screen whilst the washer fluid is still frozen...and thawing this can take a good while !

Modernish JLR products (post ford era) and all Ford's you can spec a heated windscreen. I had a ford focus company car that had it, very handy when the car iced over. One time I was driving in the Netherlands in December the washer Jets froze up and the windscreen started to slowly ice over... to be honest I panicked a bit and turned on the wipers and maxed out the demist which made it worse! Then I remembered about the heated screen switched it on, lost about 15bhp but I could see where in was going again within 30 seconds.

That focus was a real sh!t box otherwise
 

rockits

Member
Messages
9,167
I normally start it up, leaving running for a few mins with fans on full pelt and defroster on. Then drive off.

The Disco Sport and XJL both have heated front screens with the XJL also having heated steering wheel as well.

Had to drop the Vantage at NM this morning to get a snapped door check arm/hinge replaced! Couldn't open the handle for a few.mins then a further few mins to open the door carefully, then a few further mins to open the boot!!

Need to get the new quad garage up sharpish so I can get them all inside then the frost is no longer an issue