Car de-icer

alwald

Hi, I am looking to buy some car de-icers, there are plenty of websites and brands, can you please recommend a very good de-icer, thanks!!

mikeecho

Luke Warm water

Chemical deicers generally aren't paint friendly

alwald

mikeecho wrote: »

Luke Warm water

Chemical deicers generally aren't paint friendly

It's hard when you are leaving work to find some lukewarm water :D

Seth Brundle

Buy a windscreen scraper. Applying some elbow grease to lubricate it helps.

mikeecho

alwald wrote: »

It's hard when you are leaving work to find some lukewarm water :D

Cold water... as long as it's above 0°c it'll defrost.

Bring a bottle of water with you when you leave work... I presume you have piped water at work.

.... also... it's 20°c outside today.

Where are you... Siberia ?

Use a bank card, store loyalty card, windshield ice scraper... use urine, all of those are better options than chemical deicers.
Chemical deicers will destroy your paintwork, and strip the wax from your car.

Autosport

I got de-icer from Halfords and it does the job.

mikeecho

If you are insistent on using a chemical deicer.
Use this
http://www.itcentral.ie/isopropyl-alcohol.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjw0K7NBRC7oave4cOg6JkBEiQARqotEVPq_XlUp2NwQeQpOBLi2hUMtSt1mYk_3wkDPr299XoaAsTU8P8HAQ

Its what's in the off the shelf deicers, and is probably cheaper to buy neat.

Just put some into a spray bottle, and leave it in the car.


66% iso alco , 33% water, 1% elbow grease

Del2005

mikeecho wrote: »

Cold water... as long as it's above 0°c it'll defrost.

Bring a bottle of water with you when you leave work... I presume you have piped water at work.

.... also... it's 20°c outside today.

Where are you... Siberia ?

Use a bank card, store loyalty card, windshield ice scraper... use urine, all of those are better options than chemical deicers.
Chemical deicers will destroy your paintwork, and strip the wax from your car.

Don't forget it also damages the rubber seals. IIRC I had an aerosol deicer that said to rinse with water after use!

If you are worried about ice buy a windscreen cover and ice scrapper for the side/rear windows. I was thinking of buying a car cover to throw over the car in work but have nowhere to dry it after use so just went with the windscreen cover/scrapper.

bazz26

Does the OP know something about the weather for the week ahead that the rest of us don't know? :P

mikeecho

bazz26 wrote: »

Does the OP know something about the weather for the week ahead that the rest of us don't know? :P

There will be a few a./c recon posts before we have a frost

biko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9btrNC2DPI

lollsangel

mikeecho wrote: »

Cold water... as long as it's above 0°c it'll defrost.

Bring a bottle of water with you when you leave work... I presume you have piped water at work.

.... also... it's 20°c outside today.

Where are you... Siberia ?

Use a bank card, store loyalty card, windshield ice scraper... use urine, all of those are better options than chemical deicers.
Chemical deicers will destroy your paintwork, and strip the wax from your car.

Some places because of health and safety dont allow you to defrost with water

mikeecho

lollsangel wrote: »

Some places because of health and safety dont allow you to defrost with water

You're gonna have to name some of these places, because that is the biggest load of bovine rectal expulsion I've heard this morning.

Toyotafanboi

Yer wan in the video sounds so impressed that it has removed the thinnest veneer of ice imaginable from the windscreen.

Breathing on the glass probably would have cleared that ice frost :pac:.

Toyotafanboi

mikeecho wrote: »

You're gonna have to name some of these places, because that is the biggest load of bovine rectal expulsion I've heard this morning.

I can imagine the disciplinary meeting now.

Did you take a plastic cup of Ballygowan from the water cooler and instead of using it to quench your thirst, use it to defrost your Corollas windscreen?

mikeecho

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

I can imagine the disciplinary meeting now.

Did you take a plastic cup of Ballygowan from the water cooler and instead of using it to quench your thirst, use it to defrost your Corollas windscreen?

I want my union rep.

ION08

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

I can imagine the disciplinary meeting now.

Did you take a plastic cup of Ballygowan from the water cooler and instead of using it to quench your thirst, use it to defrost your Corollas windscreen?

I imagine it's to do with the excess water darining from the windscreen and re-freezing on the ground causing a "safety Hazard"

Anyway, these de-icer questions genuinely always baffle me.

Why spend money on a spray which can potentially damage paint / rubber seals and requires additional elbow grease when you can just chuck a cup of luke warm water over the windscreen?

Toyotafanboi

I was actually just thinking that. I remember that the year of the bad snow (2010?) where water would freeze again on the ground after people had deiced with it, which is dodgy I suppose but where do you draw the line? If it's sub zero outside, you could find ice anywhere anyway, like snow that melted off a parked car and refroze under it.

Does alcohol really damage car paint anyway?

biko

The stuff used in the video is isopropyl alcohol which is very high in alcohol content and will evaporate before it does any damage.

lollsangel

mikeecho wrote: »

You're gonna have to name some of these places, because that is the biggest load of bovine rectal expulsion I've heard this morning.

Just merely saying its policy in some places. It has to do with the bad winter we had a few years back where the water refroze on the ground causing a slip hazard.

Esel

lollsangel wrote: »

Just merely saying its policy in some places. It has to do with the bad winter we had a few years back where the water refroze on the ground causing a slip hazard.

Remember making slides on the road in freezing weather by pouring a strip of water along it? Good times!

mikeecho

lollsangel wrote: »

Just merely saying its policy in some places. It has to do with the bad winter we had a few years back where the water refroze on the ground causing a slip hazard.

Do these same places ban rain during cold spells ?

Go on.. name one, just one place that's prohibits the use of water to defrost a car.

CiniO

ION08 wrote: »

Why spend money on a spray which can potentially damage paint / rubber seals and requires additional elbow grease when you can just chuck a cup of luke warm water over the windscreen?

Good luck with that on below 0 temperatures.

Del2005

CiniO wrote: »

Good luck with that on below 0 temperatures.

We rarely get below zero so warm water will work and I've used warm water in the low negative. If we lived in a country that regularly goes way below zero the advice would be different.

Doltanian

Park the car in your garage overnight, problem solved mostly. Carry a thermos flask of warm water other times.

Esel

Doltanian wrote: »

Park the car in your garage overnight, problem solved mostly. Carry a thermos flask of warm water other times.

Thinly veiled "I have a garage".

mikeecho

Doltanian wrote: »

Park the car in your garage overnight, problem solved mostly. Carry a thermos flask of warm water other times.

Thinly veiled "I have a thermos in my pocket.... or do i".

run_Forrest_run

Doltanian wrote: »

Park the car in your garage overnight

where do I put the yacht then?