The Do's and Dont's of Ice Scraping

A Few Tips For The Buffalo Winter 

With winter on the horizon, scraping ice off your car is an inevitable part of the traveling routine.  While ice scraping may seem like a fairly self explanatory process, there are a few things you can do (or not do) to make the process a little easier.

With that in mind we offer you the Do's and Dont's of ice scraping, with a little help from our friends at Popular Mechanics.  Some may seem obvious, but they do happen!  

-Do smack the hood and trunk with your flattened hand to break up any thin layer of ice, which can then be brushed off 

-Don't smack anything with a piece of wood, your 2-foot-long plastic ice scraper, or anything too heavy. You could dent the sheet metal or possibly shatter a window since glass is easier to break when it's cold. 

-Do turn on the headlights. The heat from the headlamp bulbs will make it easier to scrape ice off the lenses 

-Don't brush off snow with a snow shovel, It's too easy to scratch the paint or chip a window

-Do use winter-grade windshield washer fluid to help melt ice from the windows.  More people overlook this one than they should.  

-Don't pour boiling water from your teakettle on the windows, the heat differential will crack them.

-Don't turn the windshield wipers on until they're free of snow and ice. Leaving them trapped while they're trying to sweep the windshield could damage the motor, linkage or even the wiper blades themselves. 

So there you go.  To submit some more tips, put them in the comments section or comment on our Facebook page.  Thanks and be safe!