You can use cheap rubbing alcohol for fast de-icing your car windows!

Purchase rubbing alcohol here https://www.amazon.com/ or at your local supermarket. Go for the 70% alcohol, or even better for the 91% alcohol.

Rubbing alcohol is cheap, about 5-10 US$ per liter.

You can water the rubbing alcohol down to about 55% in order to prevent it from being flammable. It will still work to de-ice your windows. Here is a °C-temperature-%-alcohol diagram that shows you how this works.

Use an old spray bottle for applying the rubbing alcohol to your car windows. Keep the spray bottle in your car´s trunk and not in the passenger compartment.

Here is a video about how it works:

Alternatives to Spraying Alcohol

You can also spray the more expensive wiper fluid or methanol, both will also work.

You can also turn the car engine on 10 minutes before you want to leave, and melt the ice on the car windows from underneath before you scrape it off. But this is the old-style solution, not very environmentally friendly.

What works well in very cold environments, but not when it is only a few degrees centigrade below zero: lay plastic sheeting, cut like 6 inches larger than the edges, over the windshield then weigh it down with small sandbags, e.g. with old socks with sand in them. Cardboards also work for covering the windshield overnight. However, you cannot do this is in a wet/cold environment because rain can glue that plastic or cardboard sheeting to your windshield after it freezes. You cannot easily get this sheet off your window.

Some also use a bucket of hot water to de-ice their car windows but I have seen that this causes cracks in the glass, which you don´t want. The same applies to metal scrapers. They can cause cracks. Don´t use them at all.

Where my Winter Expertise stems From

I spent almost 40 winters in Upper Bavaria (near the Bavarian Alps), of which I have been driving a car for 22 winters. During my military time as a mountaineer infantry soldier, I was also driving trucks and lorries, in temperatures as cold as -35°C.

Today, I live in Singapore, at the Equator, and I am so happy that I don´t need that knowledge anymore. But sometimes, like 3 weeks back in Mongolia, this knowledge still becomes useful.

This is why I share this knowledge today with you.

Call to Action

Now is the time to try out whether it works for you or not.

Get the rubbing alcohol and a spray bottle.

 

Martin “drive safely” Schweiger