<p>Just for some back story: I’m a SoCal native (born and raised) attending Sonoma State University. It’s 30 degrees Fahrenheit right now. </p>
<p>It’s also finals week.</p>
<p>One of my roommates and I went to make a late-night sustenance run (aka Taco Bell, the fourthmeal of champions). I got in, though I had to tug a little on my door (driver’s side).</p>
<p>My roommate couldn’t get the passenger door open. I had to pull on it quite a bit, and it was then that I noticed the nice amount of ice on my car.</p>
<p>I’ve never really had to deal with ice on my car before. Maybe thin sheets of frost, but NEVER that much ice.</p>
<p>I ran the car for about 15 minutes, so the engine warmed up a little and there should be antifreeze, right?</p>
<p>My question is, do I need to do anything special to my car now that it’s getting really cold at night? It’s already a 10-year-old car, I don’t want to have to call AAA because it won’t start due to some fault of mine.</p>
<p>I would call my parents, but I don’t want to scare them with a late-night phonecall if it’s not an emergency.</p>
<p>Buy an ice scraper. And make sure that your radiator has antifreeze in it, not just water. I went to college in the South, and when I drove back home for the holidays, my car over heated. Why ? - becaue the radiator had frozen !!!</p>
<p>If you encounter ice on your windows, you have two options. You either have to scrape them, with an ice scraper or you have to let the car warm up, with both front and rear defrosters blowing full speed, until the ice melts. Most northerners use both methods simulatneously. The door sticking problem usually occurs on one side of the car so often we’re forced to use the other door to enter the vehicle. Many of us have learned the hard way that we shouldn’t take our car to the car wash when very cold weather is anticipated, as all doors could freeze shut. In this case, you have to use a hair dryer with an extension cord. The weather used to get really cold when I was living up in North Dakota and people actually plugged in their cars at night to keep the engine block warm.</p>
<p>If you have power windows and they freeze shut, wait it out. Pushing them may break them. Signed, she who had to use the drive up pharmacy w/car door open yesterday - what a thick layer of ice we had!</p>
<p>The biggest concern, however, is what we call “black ice.” This is when it rained during the day when it was, say, 34 degrees; now it’s night and the temp has dropped to, say, 30 degrees. So the water on the road has frozen but you don’t see it; it just looks like a wet road. Hence the name, black ice. Very very dangerous. So when the temp drops below freezing, be very very careful driving.</p>
<p>Don’t run the defrosters for too long – just long enough to loosen the ice to scrape it off. Despite my urgings not to, dh left defrosters on for a long time on the van and eventually cracked the front windshield.</p>
<p>If the locks freeze, you can buy a product at any auto parts store to unfreeze them. It’s called something terribly clever like De-icer but comes in a little tube to squirt inside them.</p>
<p>Buy a couple of cans of spray de-icer (kmart, target, any auto section of a store). Run the car with the defrosters on, spray the windows with the spray window de-icer, and the ice/frost will melt pretty quickly. Make sure you run the car for a few minutes every day or at least every other day during cold snaps. Also, don’t let the gas tank go down near empty during cold spells (sometimes there’s a bit of water in the gas so it’s good to keep the tank 1/2 full). If you’re in an area where snow is a common occurence, try to keep up with clearing it off the car so it doesn’t build up and turn into a big ice block. Make sure you have the right windshield washer fluid in the container under the hood—on the label it will tell you the temperature at which the fluid will freeze. Son has to use the kind that’s good to -30 below (he’s near the Montreal border). Keep a bag of rock salt or equivalent in the trunk just in case you need to put some down on the ground near the tires for traction if needed to get out of your parking spot. Keep a warm blanket or sleeping bag in the car in case your car breaks down on the road on the way home from college because if you get stranded, you’ll need it to keep you warm in the car while waiting for AAA. Also keep car battery jumper cables in your car in case the battery dies from the cold or whatever reason.</p>
<p>If you have a door that is hard to open, try another door. If you are in the car and another door won’t open, it is generally better to push from the inside as you can apply far more force without worrying about breaking off the door handle on the outside.</p>
<p>I used to keep lock deicer in my office and home. I haven’t had to use it in my current car as it has a remote opener so that I never have to put the key in which is a good way for water to get into the lock mechanism.</p>
<p>If you expect rain to freeze on your windshield overnight and want to use the car later on, it’s a good idea to lift your windshield wipers off of the windshield. I think most cars have the feature where you can lift them up off the windshield. This can prevent damage to the wiper blade when you scrape off the ice.</p>
<p>A car checkup before winter where they go through fluids, belts, hoses, etc. is something that I do regularly. Also check tire pressure as any kind of slow leaks in tires gets exacerbated in cold temperatures. If you have a high-performance vehicle, make sure that you don’t have summer-weight oil in it during the winter (I did this once and had to have it towed to get it thawed out - the car had 20W50 in it in cold weather; it should have had 10w40 or 30 for the winter.</p>
<p>I’d suggest a combination snow brush/ice scraper. These are much longer than typical ice scrapers so they allow more reach. You can also brush the snow off your car with them as they have soft bristles. I recommend keeping the snow brush in the passanger compartment if you have a trunk. If you have several inches of snow on your trunk, opening the trunk will allow some snow to fall into the trunk which can get things wet inside the trunk. If it is in the trunk and there’s a lot of snow, brush it off before opening the trunk.</p>
<p>Don’t turn on your wipers if they are frozen or weighed down.</p>
<p>Don’t park under an overhang where water can fall on your car and freeze. You can wind up with an inch of ice on parts of your car (I do park under an overhang and do get this level of ice buildup and do deal with it but it isn’t fun to do).</p>
<p>Although tempting, never pour hot water on your windshield as it may cause the glass to crack. Cold water is okay. Also remember to put the convertible top up. Back-up into parking spaces so that your car battery is easily accessible if you need to “jump-start” your vehicle.</p>
<p>I often poured hot tap water on my windshield to defrost when I didn’t have time to scrape.
Worked for me. . . Also, if you can’t find a scraper, CD cases work pretty well.</p>