How to Deice Your Windshield

Video Transcript

NATHAN MCCULLOUGH: Hi, my name is Nathan McCullough on behalf of Expert Village. In these clips, we're going to talk about some of the tips and tricks in order to properly winterize your vehicle. In this clip, we're going to talk about how to properly deice your windshield and wiper blades. What I have here is a can of De-Icer as you can see. What it's used for, it has an alcohol-based solvent in it. The alcohol will decrease the freezing temperature of water as they mix together. What that'll do is liquify it and make it so. Your windshield will be clear and your wiper blades will begin functioning properly. Your wiper blades are actually a pretty complex mechanism. They have a whole bunch of moving parts and springs inside of them that hold them tight to your windshield. In the winter, snow and various other stuff will build up on them; frost, ice, sleet--things of that nature. Instead of just cranking your wipers on and having a mount work, if you suspect that they might be frozen, have a can of this stuff in your garage. If you're a business traveler and happen to park your vehicle at an airport for an extended period of time in the winter, it's going to get a significant amount of buildup. Most business travelers will be in a hurry. It's going to be a good idea to have a can of this ready and waiting for you. You can keep it in the passenger compartment and you pretty much just shake the can and it applies like any other spray. You going to want to use it very lightly all over the windshield and it comes with a straw right here that you can insert into the orifice and spray a light film inside the wiper blades. Now, you're not going to want to use the actual propellant force to blast the ice out of the way. What you're going to want to do is just apply a light film to it and you use this very sparingly and let the chemical action take effect. That's the proper way to deice your wiper blades and your windshield. If you notice that there's significant ice buildup on the blade itself which is making it adhere to the windshield, spray some of your De-Icer on it and take the palm of the flat on your hand, put it right on top of the wiper arm elbow here and just wiggle it just like so. What that'll do is avoid tearing the wiper blade, blade portion. If you are to just grab it by the side and peel it up on or if it's frozen significantly, the blade itself is going to stay and here to the windshield and you just pull away the base. That's the proper way to deice your windshield and wiper blades.

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