Motorist are being encouraged to adhere to a wing mirror rule, even if it seems “silly”.
Drivers are being warned they should stick to wing mirror warnings heading in the Christmas period, reports the Birmingham Live. According to expert,s it should prevent your wing mirror from freezing over, and visibility being reduced.
Rather than taking an ice scraper to the wind mirrors every morning, using a common piece of clothing could be more fruitful – a standard sock. There are also classic car de-frosting tips that should be avoided, as they could cause more problems in the long run.
An Automotive Lecturer at Glasgow Kelvin College, Iain Ferguson explained: “De-icing your car is an essential safety precaution during the winter, but it’s of course time consuming. Covering your wing mirrors with old socks can help prevent them from icing over, saving you time and even protecting them from potential scratching and cracking.”
“Popping on the kettle and using hot water to get frost and ice off your car is an easy mistake to make, but it is also a costly one,” he added. “This can crack the glass on your car, leading to expensive repairs – an icy window will be the least of your worries when you get that bill in.”
Hot water can be used for rescuing our frozen door handles, or if your car has a remote locking system, the manual key can also help.
Iain says: “You can just pour water over these, but also a lot of the remote locks, they will also have a key that slides out of the key fob as well and you can turn that in the traditional way.
“Often it’s just that the handle has come a little bit solid, and you just need to pour some water over it because it will have just frozen up a little bit.”
The automotive lecturerer also warned drivers to be cautious of black ice on the road as the harsh weather continues to hit the UK.
“The first thing I suppose is when people are clearing their windscreen the advice is not to use boiling water,” he said. “Our AA patrols are often called out to people because they have put a fresh kettle of boiling water across their windscreen, and it cracks windscreens quite a lot.”
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He advices to use anti-freeze or lukewarm water instead, completely avoiding boiled water from the kettle: “Some plain, warm water or some anti-freeze spray if you have it – but not boiling water.”
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