Here’s a link to Rain-X
http://www.rainx.com/Products/Windshield_Treatment/2_In_1.aspx
*Helps prevent and remove sleet, snow, ice, bugs, and road spray from sticking to glass *
Wow, this stuff doesn’t require buffing, which used to be the PITA about the product. Me lurves how rain beads away and you often don’t even need the wipers. I think I still have some of the “old” stuff in the garage—I’ll have to apply some today.
How humorously different in such a small way America and Germany are!
One thing I’ve seen people do is put a blanket (as constanze mentioned) or even their floor mats over the windshield when snow or ice is forecasted.
Huh? We recently had a wave of -20 C in North and Mid-Germany, and in Bavaria (close to the Mountains) -10 are usual during a normal winter. I didn’t know Boston is that close to artic temps.
okay, I looked at the ADAC website(the German AA; their experts and advice on cars is highly respected) and they say
Note to the Mods: I quoted a long part in order to translate the german text, I hope that’s okay.
I looked at that stuff and it said it has to be applied when the temperature is above 40. Since that won’t happen until April or May, I guess I missed the window (pun intended).
I’m saying…tickets for idling or not clearing off your windshield?? Don’t your police have more serious issues to attend to?
More on the de-icer spray:
<<The instructions say to** start the car, then fire up your defrost **(front and rear, I presume). While the car’s warming up, you spray Rain-X De-Icer on the glass surfaces, including side windows, rear window and mirrors.
Results for me were unremarkable; so don’t throw away your scraper just yet. The ice was typical Ottawa-style, which means thick. Side windows were as tough to clean as they always were. The windshield was easier, but don’t forget, I had the defrost on full blast. Similarly, the rear window was no problem, but the defroster was working there, too. Mirrors were still tricky.
I suspect that if I left the car to warm up with the heater on, the ice would be easy to remove with or without Rain-X De-Icer. In which case a remote car starter might be a better idea. >>
bolding mine
Not clearing your windshield completly => Dangerous driving because you can’t see all around. Dangerous drivers are stopped by the traffic police because that’s their job.
Idling = polluting the enviroment, that needs to be stopped so selfish people learn it.
And it’s the job of the police to stop all crimes, not concentrate on murders only and forget small stuff. But then, our murder rate is a bit lower than the US (one of those small differences…)
If the police started ranking crimes by importance instead of stopping all illegal behaviour, then they would interfere with the job of the lawmakers, who make laws for a reason. Since there is a good reason in most cases, only the selfish or dumb people need to be punished, the sensible ones see the reason and obey the laws.
Denver has an idling law. No more than 5 minutes.
Unless it’s less than 20 degrees.
I think a bigger concern over pollution is car theft. Since that’s not an issue for me, I’ll keep running my car for 15 minutes in the morning before I leave (in the winter).
I prevented snow melting and freezing on my car one night while driving in the snow by turning off the heater and opening my window so the glass would get to outside temp before I reached my destination. I had already scraped ice off the windshield once that night and since it was still snowing I didn’t want to do it twice. It worked, all I had to do was brush snow off the glass, no scraping. I felt so smart 
Yup. And it doesn’t have to be too much below freezing for this to occur. Although I don’t wait for “operating temperature.” It’s quite good enough to simply get the air above freezing, which – except on the coldest days – occurs in the time it takes me to clean the car.
We had a cold wave where outside temperatures in the morning were showing as -17 C on my outdoor thermometer (which as swag from an EU company only registers in C). But as I mentioned, it needn’t be this cold to form frost inside a car.
Consider that for the rest of your cites (thanks, by the way!), gas is cheap is cheap and plentiful (yes, even at $4 per US gallon), so we don’t worry about the expense. Frost forms from your own respiration, not necessarily only from trapped humidity. AC compressors don’t work below a certain temperature. Diesel engines are rare, and so noise and stench isn’t a concern for us. And finally, while collective measurements from pre-heating cars would be high, the percentange of contribution versus a normal commute is inconsequential for those of us with long commutes.
I’m not provoking an argument (I hope), but rather just expressing general differences between USAians and Europeans.
I live in Buttfuck Nowhere where the cops don’t have a lot to do and I still haven’t heard of people getting ticketed for not clearing their windshields. But I was being kind of tongue-in-cheek about it, since that’s always people’s retort when they do get nabbed–“aren’t there worse crimes you could be investigating?” 
I don’t encourage bashing car glass, but I have a somewhat better idea. When I hope to make the ice into smaller pieces, I use the corner of the scraper to etch lines in the ice. The smaller pieces are easier to deal with.
The biggest problem for me was always that I hadn’t allowed time to scrape ice for 10 minutes before leaving for work.:rolleyes:
Like some of you, my first step is to start the car and turn the defroster on high.
By the way, it’s not true that car air conditioning was pioneered by three brothers named Norm, Hi, and Max. It’s a fun thought, though.
I have no idea but at my work we have copious amounts of methanol and ethylene glycol and a coworker did just this: read the ingredients, then made his own. He sprays it on before parking the car for the night (because of the heater, the glass is not so cold) and he says it works good. If I remember I will ask him if he’s still using it.
Hey, thanks! I wonder if either would damage the paint (or windshield wipers, other things they would come into contact with) if you went too crazy on the amounts.