reposted from 1-14-11
Haven’t tried these out and haven’t ‘fact checked’ them either, but if you find yourself in a crunch [Hello Georgia…how you like your white Christmas?]
- UPDATE: 2-3-11: Prior to freezing rain or sleet place those small plastic shopping bags over your mirrors to keep ice from forming. Use the handles to tie the bags on and just tear them off when your ready to drive.
- UPDATE: 2-3-11: Whenever parking for a lengthily period [overnight, shopping, at work] pull your windshield wipers away from your windows so they don’t freeze to the window.
- UPDATE 1-18-11: Discovered a new one myself. Instead of placing you ‘house’ broom by the door for cleaning snow and salt from my boots and shoes I bought a cheap toilet brush and stand at the dollar store and have it there. It’s better because the bristles are stiffer, the short handle allows better handling, the stand and you can put your broom back where it belongs.
Courtesy of A.Baker:
- Keep your headlights clear with car wax! Just wipe ordinary car wax on your headlights. It contains special water repellents that will prevent that messy mixture from accumulating on your lights - lasts 6 weeks. All these years I’ve been doing this by accident and didn’t realize it. Probably wore off between my last waxing and the first snow. I’ve found ‘RainX’ very effective for this.
- Squeak-proof your wipers with rubbing alcohol! Wipe the wipers with a cloth saturated with rubbing alcohol or ammonia. This one trick can
make badly streaking & squeaking wipers change to near perfect silence & clarity.
- Ice-proof your windows with vinegar! Frost on it's way? Just fill a spray bottle with three parts vinegar to one part water & spritz it on all your windows at night. In the morning, they'll be clear of icy mess.. Vinegar contains acetic acid, which raises the melting point of water---preventing water from freezing! Also found ‘RainX’ helps here too.
- Prevent car doors from freezing shut with cooking spray! Spritz cooking oil on the rubber seals around car doors & rub it in with a paper towel. The cooking spray prevents water from melting into the rubber. Guess this should work, might be better than my trick of knotting the end of a towel and placing it inside the car and closing the door on it with the other end hanging out: unlock the door, pull the handle and towel at the same time.
- Fog-proof your windshield with shaving cream! Spray some shaving cream on the inside of your windshield & wipe if off with paper towels. Shaving cream has many of the same ingredients found in commercial defoggers. ???
- De-ice your lock in seconds with hand sanitizer! Just put some hand sanitizer gel on the key & the lock & the problems solved! Makes since.
