Are you the kind of person who only clears a small portion of the back window and most of the front window and hope the defroster will do the rest?
Or are you the kind of person who cleans all of the windows and all of the lights?
If we’re talking about snow, I try to get off as much as I can, because it truly sucks to be driving behind someone with a giant cascade of snow streaming off their car.
If it’s just frost or ice, I scrape off the driver’s side of the windshield and the driver’s side mirror and that’s about it, because I’m lazy.
Every particle, for the above reason, it’s simple courtesy and good safety.
It’s a lot easier now that I have a garage at my house and a parking garage at work.
Links to two threads on this topic from last winter:
Why shovel out your car after a heavy snow?
Clear the fucking SNOW off your car!!!
And to answer the question in the OP, I clean off the entire car (minivan, in my case). I decline to endanger myself or the other people on the road.
That and when it starts to thaw and refreeze, it can turn into chunks of ice that can fly off and injure or kill people.
Yep, it’s not uncommon around here for folks to be tooling along with a foot of snow in a giant rectangle on the top of their car, only to have the whole thing slide off when they enter the highway and increase their speed.
I also, back when I was younger and stupider, had that big chunk o’ snow come sliding *forward *once when I had to stop abruptly, and the whole dang thing slid down onto my windshield and the hood. I had to get out of the car in the middle of an intersection and clear the snow off all over again. Wow, did I feel like an asshole.
So yeah, snow comes off, all of it that I can get. I don’t worry about little bits if I can see paint through the brushmarks, but there better not be chunks. Ice I scrape off only the front and back windows, though.
I get as much off as I easily can. If there’s a thin film of ice under the snow on the roof, I’m not going to freeze my ass off scraping it.
Yesterday I saw my neighbor do something that I’d always thought about, but had never noticed anyone doing; as soon as it started to snow, he put a tarp over his car.
Gotta be a lot easier to yank all the snow off in two seconds than to scrape and brush for five minutes.
I get all of it off - off the top, off the windows, off the doors, off the bumpers - there’s nothing I hate more than someone who is in front of me and has a blizzard coming at me because of their thoughtlessness. Plus, it’s dangerous!
If I did that before our last snowstorm, the tarp would still be attached to the car, underneath 8 inches of heavy ice and snow. I agree it sounds brilliant for a light dusting, though.
Yeah, only an inch or two was forecast and that’s about all we got. Agreed that it wouldn’t make sense for any kind of heavy snowfall.
Snow’s that white fluffy stuff, right?
We have some really stupid people around here who don’t clear off all the snow (sorry I didn’t clarify I was talking about snow in the first place). They also forget how to drive so the first time it snows there are a zillion accidents.
Well, sometimes. But sometimes it’s that deep, heavy, wet stuff that braeks your back when you try to shovel it and traps tyou in your house.
What do you do in the summer? Just throw blankets over the windows you don’t need to see out of? :rolleyes:
** HIJACK **
Who lifts there windshield wipers before a snowstorm so they’re not frozen to the windshield?
Note to self: stay out of Columbus.
Yes, first I turn on the car so it warms up, then I get the brush. I’m less fastidious with the rear side windows but I try to get all the ice off everywhere else. I forgot the passenger side mirror last night, but I guess now I’ll remember.
Every bit of snow, and ice, while the car warms up. Sometimes put the wipers up before snow, if I happen to think about it, but mostly I find that after clearing the windshield, the defroster unsticks the blades just fine by the time I have cleared the rest.
I am looking for some shingles to put into the trunk, for emergency traction strips, since my apartment development finds it necessary to plow ice up into a ridge in front of my car most years. If the snow happens while I am at work, I shovel it out of the parking space, from one line to the next, all the way to the curb, too. Of course some asshole will take that space while I am at work the next day.
TrisFortunately I no longer have to clear the snow off my car on a regular basis anymore. But I still keep a brush and scraper in my car for those rare occasions.
Absolutely I clear off all the windows, side mirrors and any loose stuff on the hood and roof. (Which would tend to slide/blow onto the windows again.)
It takes seconds and is a tremendous safety gain. Can’t imagine what’s going thru the heads of the “peephole” people.
“I’m cold and late for work,” most likely.
But sheesh, all right already, I’ll start scraping off all the windows! You’ve convinced me!
(Does it count if I defrost the windshield by using the wiper fluid?)