Ice will ‘disappear’ from your car windscreen if you use 1 method
The temperatures have dropped significantly in recent days, and it’s finally beginning to feel properly wintery. With snow and ice across certain parts of the UK, leaving your car overnight on the driveway outside can leave it vulnerable and prone to freezing.
And there’s nothing worse than desperately trying to de-ice your car when you’re in a rush. You were supposed to meet with a friend five minutes ago, but you’re still there, desperately scratching at your windscreen with a scraper or, in some cases, a credit card.
On Reddit’s ‘Ask UK’ forum, someone asked others for the most efficient way to de-ice a car. They wrote: “On icy mornings, I am always surprised to see my neighbours chiselling away at ice on their windows for up to 10 to 15 minutes with their plastic scrapers.
“I, on the other hand, fill up a jug of hot tap water, pour it over the windows and turn on the wipers. Job done in less than 2 minutes. I have been doing this for over 25 years. Am I missing something? Why do people scrape away when there is such an obvious, more efficient option?
“Edit: Just to be clear, when I said water from the hot tap, I meant warm, not hot, hot, and never boiling. Warm enough to melt the ice. Never cracked/shattered a window in 25 years, and I will still do it”.
While scraping away at your car windscreen isn’t advisable, especially not with a credit card or something like a CD case, in no circumstances should you use boiling hot water.
The Green Flag shares: “Firstly, ignore all the advice about boiling kettles. It may seem logical that hot water will melt the ice, but if the water’s too hot, it could cause your windscreen to crack. Also, the water may spill on the ground and freeze, forming a dangerous patch of ice”.
Which? also warns that you should never use boiling water in any circumstances for the same reason. You wouldn’t realise the water was too hot until it was too late, and your windscreen had cracked. Even if it doesn’t crack straightaway, it can weaken it.
Which? suggests that you “do it properly” and get in your car, switching on the warm air blowers to the windscreen and the rear window, and popping on a defrost setting if you have one. Then “crank up that heat”. They also recommend using de-icer on the outside of the windscreen.
Trade Price Cars shared that using a bag filled with hot to lukewarm water – not boiling – can do the trick, but you should never, under any circumstances, use kettle temperature water in a bag, or straight onto the windscreen, as this is dangerous.
Green Flag also wouldn’t recommend “sitting in your car with the engine running and fan on (while you wait for the heat of your car to de-ice the windows)” because it “takes a long time” and “wastes fuel and increases wear on the engine”.
Instead, they recommended using a de-icing spray, spraying it all over your windscreen, and leaving it to do its magic. Most work immediately, meaning you can drive off worry-free, not concerned about getting pulled over by the police for not having a clear windscreen.
In the comments on Reddit, someone wrote: “Using boiling/hot water can crack/shatter the glass, plus if you don’t get in the car and put the wipers on quickly enough, the water you just poured can freeze into an even tougher ice sheet than the natural condensation ice covering. I don’t know how big your neighbours’ cars are if it takes them 10-15 minutes to scrape off the ice, mine is done in under 5 minutes”.
“I put the windscreen cover on the night before,” an organised motorist shared, meaning that the ice will go on the cover, rather than directly onto the windscreen of your car.
Another shared: “Put the engine on, put the rear de-mister on and the direct then heat to the windscreen. I use deicer if it’s bad or if I don’t have time, I scrape otherwise.
“By the way, using hot water on icy glass is a terrible idea; any small chip or stress in the glass could cause a crack when exposed to sudden high temperatures”.
