2009 Saturn Aura, but I’ll be switching cars with my husband when I go back to school in May. Then I’ll be driving a 2006 Mazda 3.
I think I was incorrect about saying it’s against the law in Calgary - it is just strongly discouraged. It is against the law in Toronto, Windsor, Montreal and Vancouver, and Hamilton.
However, from this website:
Idling until your windows clear enough to drive is a no-brainer; idling until your car is warm is a different thing.
When my old Integra died last August I bought a low-end 2009 Hyundai as a temporary replacement. I will likely replace it this year, but I’m waiting until I am in the right financial state.
Dodge Caliber
…and you left off GMC (Terrain, wife’s vehicle)
er, that’s not how “lemon laws” work. For the most part, they stipulate that the vehicle has to be out of service for a certain length of time due to a defect, and/or the repair of a defect has to have been unsuccessful a certain number of times. You’re not going to be able to force a buy-back just because you had one instance of a squeaky bushing.
and nice of you to make it sound like the car’s already falling apart. I’ve worked for several automotive suppliers, all of which have supplied automakers from around the world. No automaker has a zero-defect rate. NONE.
You missed Pontiac. I know they’re discontinued, but there’s still a crapload of them around.
In fifteen years when I tell my (future) kids about cars, they won’t even know what a Pontiac or a Mercury is.
Hrm. I was taught by my parents to let my car run for up to 20 minutes. I wonder if that’s a leftover trait from when they were young - in the 60s, 70s and 80s cars probably weren’t as well equipped to deal with cold weather? Also, it wasn’t until a couple years ago Dad stopped doing the winter cardboard grill cover thing.
hmm lessee…
Currently a 05’ Chevy Colorado at the moment, but had at one point these…
72’ Cadillac - Coup’devill - brown
74’ Cadillac - Coup’devill - green
78’ Cadillac - Calaias - Tan
79’ Ford - Thunderbird - Silver
77’ Buick - Stationwagon - Blue
78’ Dodge - Police Cruiser - White
80’ Volvo - Brown
87’ Buick - Skylark - Blue
90’ Plymouth - Horizon - Blue
94’ Nissan - Truck
No Corvette’s 
oh and a GMC - Conversion Van
How could I forget that monstrosity that broke down several times…before I even made the first payment. :mad:
An electric DeLorean.
Well, I’m not actually driving it now, since it’s in mid-conversion in my garage, and I’m driving my old beater of a Ford. With a little luck and a lot of work, I should be driving the DeLorean by the end of the year.
A Volkswagen Passat station wagon, along with 90% of the rest of the population of Norway. Or, at least, that’s what it feels like when I’m trying to find it in a parking lot…
An electric DeLorean? Cool! But how are you going to generate the 1.21 gigawatts? And if you get it working, please…take me to 2112 with you…
Flux Power, of course. 
2011 Ram Quadcab (Dodge pickup). It expands to 3 times its normal length for long road trips. 
(see Chefguy upthread)
Every car I’ve ever owned will have to warm up before the windows will defrost. Currently, I let it idle for about 15 minutes. Depending on conditions, the defroster starts to get the interior and windshield warm and the warmth helps when you scrape the windows. Sometimes, if it’s really bad I’ll let it run longer.
You might need to consider getting better cars. 
For Calgary winters, I’ve owned a 1985 Dodge Charger, a 1995 Plymouth Neon, a 1999 Toyota Tercel, and my current 2012 Ford Mustang. None of them are what you might call “high end” vehicles and none of them required me to idle for longer than it took to scrape the outsides of the windows before they were throwing enough heat to keep the windows defrosted. Maybe as much as five minutes. Maybe.
These days, firing up my sweet baby in the relative comfort of my garage means no scraping and no additional idling. Start the car, enjoy the roar of the Mustang’s twin exhaust for a second, strap on my seat belt, and away I go.
Like Dread Pirate Jimbo, I’ve driven a variety of cars in a variety of western Canadian conditions, and I didn’t find this, either. Turn on the car with the air inside blowing up on the windshield and the rear defroster on, go out and scrape the windows, get in and drive away with windows clear enough to see. I think you need a different car, too.
Cat Whisperer - Please read what I <snipped>. You changed your post to say scrape the windows.
Idling long enough in any type of cold with ice on the windows to get them defrosted is going to take enough time that the cab will be heated. Add in scrapping and it’s a completely different story…
I think we’re talking about two different things - yes, I scrape the outside of the windows. I don’t scrape the inside, because the curve of the window makes scraping almost impossible. My bad - I never meant that you should idle your car until the outside of the windows were clear, just the inside where it’s hard to scrape. It’s such a routine with me (well, it was until I got a garage to park in) that it never occurred to me to specify that I was talking about defrosting the inside, not the outside.
You get ice on the inside? I think it’s you that needs a different car ;).