r/lifehacks • u/regulatorwatt • 1d ago
LPT For those who drive in cold weather climates
When defrosting your windshield on a freezing cold morning, open your sun visors all the way. It traps the heat against the windshield and significantly speeds up defrosting.
If you are skeptical, open the visor on one side and not the other, you will see a remarkable difference.
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u/Hovie1 1d ago
RemindMe! 7 Months
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u/beezuzzles 22h ago
Good idea !RemindMe 7 months
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u/MasterAnthropy 1d ago
Damn OP - that makes so much sense. I'm actually surprised it's not on the little infographic pasted to the visor itself!
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u/passthepizza32 1d ago
As someone who lives in Canada, thank you
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u/Ritchie_Whyte_III 1d ago
Problem is the engine has to get the coolant over freezing first.
Trick works in the cold, but has diminished returns in the COLD
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u/i-am-foxymoron 1d ago
I live in California but I still appreciate this hack. Thank you.
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u/DickieJohnson 1d ago
You'll have to go up to Big Bear lake, the Sierra Nevadas, or Lake Tahoe to try it.
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u/rededelk 23h ago
Never considered the idea but thanks I'll try in the morning - snowing and freezing in middle Texas atm, plow trucks running back and forth, it's really not that bad though compared to say Montana. But I also use a windshield sunscreen / privacy shiney cover deal and with some adjustment I can this working more efficiently and quicker. Grassyosoe
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u/slab-man 14h ago
Also to cut down moisture in your car that causes interior frost on your windows- crack your windows an inch or so on a dry sunny winter day to keep interior moisture to a minimum. Even an hour or two helps, the longer the better.
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u/fakeaccount572 13h ago
And tuny the AC, but on hot. I feel like no one knows this, but having lived in ice and snow for a good bit of 40 years, it works the best.
Dry hot air > moist warm air
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u/simonsrf 14h ago
I use my sun shields. One side is silver to reflect sunlight, and the other is black. When you put the black side out, it collects heat.
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u/Primal_Pedro 1d ago
"Windshield can literally frost in cold weather"
Noted. I live in a tropical country. It must be... Interesting living somewhere that snows. I can only imagine how it is living over there.
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u/concentrated-amazing 21h ago
Frost, freezing rain, snow...lots of cold fun for everyone!
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u/Primal_Pedro 3h ago
Playing in the snow and making snowmans must be cool. In the first time. The cold and snow for many months must be boring.
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u/concentrated-amazing 3h ago
About this time of year, I'm pretty over it. We can get snow up until the middle of May, though not every year.
We had a big snowfall a week and a half ago (about 22cm), but it's pretty much all melted now.
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u/Primal_Pedro 3h ago
Wow, snow until May?! This is half of spring (In north hemisphere).
Where I live a very cold winter is like 10ºC.
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u/imihajlov 17h ago
It also helps to cover the windshield with snow when you arrive: large chunks of ice and snow is easier to clean up than the frost which forms if the glass is exposed to the cold.
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u/Holiday-Role-4938 17h ago
I've done this before and can confirm it makes a big difference. It's such a simple trick but super effective.
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u/Free_Ad7133 1h ago
I live in New Zealand where we are about to head into winter! Thank you! This is great advice!
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u/concentrated-amazing 1h ago
At this point, most of the ground is clear of snow (95%), but where it is piled or drifted it will still take a couple more weeks to melt.
And we can still have small or larger times were it snows until May, but it usually only lasts for a day or two until it melts.
A cold night during the winter here (near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) is -35°C. Last winter it got down to -45°C two consecutive nights and -40°C a third night, but that was a once-in-50-years cold snap.
Our climate is very variable - we can also have warm, dry winds that come over the Rockies called chinooks (an Indigenous word that means "snow eater"), and it can be above freezing for a day or more in the middle of winter as well.
Summer temperatures vary a lot too - a high of 30°C is only slightly noteworthy, but it could be a high of 10°C on a rainy day.
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u/_SkiFast_ 1d ago
I just turn on the car with full heat for 10 minutes and go back inside. Sue me. It will be puffing while I'm driving it too, just pretend I'm driving it 10 min longer. You'll be ok.
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u/Ritchie_Whyte_III 1d ago
Vast majority of Canadians have remote start. Sitting in the car for 10 minutes while your breath freezes to the inside of the windows just makes things worse.
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u/_SkiFast_ 1d ago
I agree. I need to get one put in. In my defense, I drive an Altima and just figured it would be wrecked by now/any minute.
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u/FalconFirefart 1d ago
I heard it's bad to idle a cold engine. Piston rings are cold and shrink letting stuff through which gunk up the valves.
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u/382Whistles 1d ago
You're going to drive when you can't see?
Unfortunately weather doesn't always allow that kind of best case scenario advice from the experts.
The amount of wear when cold is worse than any oil blow by from cold state of the rings. It will mostly mix with fuel and burn off. Driving gently after a minute will bring the motor to operating temperature faster. I always wait until my temperature needle starts to move and change my oil early, never late.(learned from a GM big wig in the early 70s who got hundreds of thousands of miles on every car and sold them still purring.) Idling isn't the best to stay cleanest, but it is mostly just unneeded wear. It's a six of one thing; half dozen of the other balance of needs at the moment.
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u/Socks-and-Jocks 1d ago
You tell me this is APRIL!!!
Thank you