OT: Car heaters and ice scraping

[James Wilkinson Sword]

You're right, that gets big cracks across it, small pieces would obscure= vision. I was thinking of side windows when I've broken them to get in= to my car after locking the keys in it.

Still, it's stronger glass, probably the same as a house window. Hit yo= ur house window moderately with a rock or hammer, nothing will happen, s= ame on a car. But try it in a greenhouse and the glass will fall to bit= s.

-- =

In Today's Market Activity, Helium was up. Feathers were down. Paper was= stationary. Fluorescent tubing was dimmed in light trading. Knives were= up sharply. Cows steered into a bull market. Pencils lost a few points.= Hiking equipment was trailing. Elevators rose, while escalators continu= ed their slow decline. Weights were up in heavy trading. Light switches = were off. Mining equipment hit rock bottom. Diapers remain unchanged. Sh= ipping lines stayed at an even keel. The market for raisins dried up. Co= ca Cola fizzled. Caterpillar stock inched up a bit. Sun peaked at midday= . Balloon prices were inflated. And, Scott Tissue touched a new bottom. = Invest wisely!

[damduck-egg]

Simply start your car and put the demister on 10 minutes

That bit is bollocks if you are off land where the Road traffic Acts apply like most peoples driveways . It would make performing maintenance on cars which involve the engine running very difficult and every garage is breaking the law by not having someone sat in the car while they do it.

Though in the light of vehicles being stolen and being used deliberately to run people down there have been mutterings whether such legislation may be needed but that would not necessarily be limited to having the engine running or not which is an obsolete concept with electric cars but immobilization. It's not a new concept , during WW2 cars were supposed to immobilized beyond what the crude ignition keys could give, taking the rotor arm out and keeping it in your pocket was the most common.

That may be a sticking point depending on the circumstances , small print or if you had taken other measures such as not opening a set of substantial gates.

G.Harman

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Is it also illegal to leave the keys in the ignition while you pop to the shop?

Is it also illegal to leave your wallet in your back pocket where someone could steal it? The criminal is the thief, not the victim.

No, just blame the thief.

My car is kept in a locked garage :-)

[ARW]

Of course 10 minutes at idle it's not long enough. So just rev the bollocks off the vehicle for 5 minutes and get the job done in half the time.

[NY]

Yes, because the garage provided with most new-build houses isn't big enough to get a car in. My house, built in 2000, had a garage that was not wide enough for me to open a car door if I drove into the garage: the one time I had to do it because my car was insecure after the local scrotes had attempted to break in, I had to crawl through the car and exit through the boot. And that was a Peugeot 306, so not exactly a big car. My neighbour had an *old-style* Mini (ie Austin or Morris, not BMW) and he said that even with that he had to be careful not to graze the edge of the doors on the walls as he opened the doors.

That's why few people put their car in a modern garage - because it is not fit for purpose.

[ss]

Or just put a piece of cardboard on the screen held by the wipers and no scraping required

[NY]

"Toughened glass" doesn't mean that the glass won't crack due to thermal shock. It means that thermal stress has been built into the glass during manufacture by carefully-controlled differential cooling, so that if the glass is subject to additional stresses due to being hit by a stone, it will fracture into small pebble-size pieces instead of into large, jagged shards.

This is as opposed to laminated glass which does not have these thermal stresses built into it (*), and solves the shard problem another way: although the glass breaks into large pieces, these are glued to a plastic sheet sandwiched in the middle, and so are kept safe.

(*) And therefore does not have the polarising pattern seen with polaroid sunglasses.

[DerbyBorn]

"James Wilkinson Sword" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Every now and again you see a car where they must have the heater set on Recirculate as they look like a suana. /Often older drivers. I knew one who set the Recirculate control midway on at least 3 cars I recall him having.

[NY]

Car windscreens used to be toughened glass. It was a problem if you drove wearing polaroid sunglasses because of the pattern that the toughening process caused in the glass.

If the windscreen was hit, your field of view was obscured by a crazy paving of tiny pebble-size bits of glass - hence the advice that if it happened, you should punch a hole through the window so you could see where you were going.

I remember my dad's car in the 1970s getting a broken window when a stone chip flew up from the car in front. He showed me the hole that he'd had to punch in the screen, and he had to dismantle the heater pipes to retrieve all the bits of glass that rattled around as soon as he turned on the blower.

Toughened glass was a real nuisance. Laminated glass, when it became standard in the 80s (I think), is much better.

There was a tragic case of a famous footballer in the 70s whose son was killed by a stone that hit his head after being thrown up from traffic ahead (*) - toughened allowed this, whereas laminated wouldn't: the plastic sheet between the two pieces of glass is touch enough to stop most stones.

(*)

- he was the origin of the "nice one Cyril, nice one son" football chant,

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

Good evening Mr Wadsworth. Or: Nip into Aldi and buy two screen covers for less than a couple of quid each. One for the back, one for the front. Attach to screens, this takes less than two minutes and they work very well. I've been using the same covers for the past three years. Do you lot realise that JWS aka Peter Hucker (wanker) has successfully trolled this group on the same subject that he posted two years ago?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

So you drive off with two of your windows non-frosted, but all the glass on your whole car sub zero so it can mist and frost up easily. Much safer to warm all the glass up with the heater before you set off.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

You sound like a cyclist.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

If you have the AC on, recirculate would presumably be dryer, as you'd keep condensing water out of the same air.

I never understood what recirculate was for. By the time you realise you're driving through an area that stinks of manure etc, it's too late. No point in keeping that air inside your car is there?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Well I've put loads of half boiled (50% cold tap, 50% boiling) water onto many car windscreens, with no damage whatsoever. It's probably about as tough as pyrex. I wouldn't try boiling though.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Then you cough while driving along and instantly can't see through the cold glass.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Nothing in a newbuild area is fit for purpose. There's an estate near h= ere with (I kid you not) single track roads! And.... no pavements! So = we have one lane with cars trying to go both ways, with kids playing in = the middle of the road, round artificially created (artistic?) blind ben= ds. And any Asda delivery vans, postmen etc have nowhere to stop withou= t blocking the whole road.

-- =

Seven wheelchair athletes have been banned from the Paralympics after th= ey tested positive for WD40.

[ARW]

Just had a good look for it, but I cannot find a rear window on the van. As a Yorkshireman I consider this a 50% saving on my next trip to Aldi.

I was not aware that the special one asked the same question last winter.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

The frost on the side windows is very easily and quickly removed with a scraper. The back and front screens do not mist up as we have a modern vehicle, you have a damp shed and you will always have a damp shed. If you tried working for a living instead of signing on the dole, you could drive a decent vehicle. Wanker.

[Max Demian]

I used to have a Ford Escort with a heated windscreen. I started the engine, turned the windscreen (and rear window) heater on, went round with a scraper, and, by the time I had scraped the side (and rear) windows, the windscreen was clear. And stayed clear. No peering through the inch of clear windscreen above the dashboard.

The only disadvantage was that the fine elements were distracting in fog.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

My vans did not have rear windows, but Mrs Pounders automobile does have rear windows. I used to use the cardboard boxes from fire extingushers until I retired. The special one will ask the same question next year. All he does is to ask and then argue. Pure unemployable attention seeking troll. He is a well known wanker.