My Forester lives outside (garage full of bikes + related stuff). We live up in the Pennines, and it gets jolly cold sometimes. Mrs SD gets right miffsome that the doors will often be frozen shut, and the screen/windows covered in ice. Not an ideal way to start the school run.

A perfect solution would be some kind of heater (car specific), which plugs into the mains, that runs on a timer, which will kick in at a preset time and warm the cars interior before the school run. Therefore helping to get frost/ice melted off, hopefully freeing up the doors that little bit too.

Any ideas?

The only things I can find are gizmos that plug into the 12v socket as an additional heater.

I know that we could pop out 10mins early and leave the car running, but Mrs Seadog hates doing that even more, and I work away, so can’t MTFU and do it for her.

Pour a kettle of boiling water over the windscreen and door locks. Worked for my Dad in all the years we were growing up.

Buy a range rover, press the button from the lounge window! Never ever boil the kettle, just Luke warm from the tap or you’ll be paying for new glass!!

Can’t you just get one of those covers that goes over the top of the car, so that will ice up, rather than the windows, locks etc. It won’t warm the car, but just leave your jacket on.
You can either sling the cover in the boot or garage until the next evening.

Pour a kettle of boiling water over the windscreen and door locks. Worked for my Dad in all the years we were growing up.

Warm, not boiling. Works just as well and considerably less likely to destroy your windscreen.

I’ve used an ordinary fan heater, on the back shelf or back seat. Long extension lead from the house, in thro’ the hatchback (or a window). Put it in before I eat breakfast, car is warm and defrosted by the time I need it. Until you know, check that you can get it far enough from the seat backs not to overheat anything.

My Dad’s Rover 75 has a diesel fuel burning heater in the engine bay. Can be wired up to a remote starter or even a timer to warm up the coolant and turn on the climate control to defrost everything.

I just use a 2 litre coke bottle with luke warm warer.

I’d do as Greybeard suggests. Try it first, figure out the best place to put the heater – where it won’t damage anything.

Then run an extension cable into the garage and plug it into a timer. That way she won’t have to sit in a cold car or nip outside first thing in the cold to switch on the heater.

We lived at altitude – water boiled at a lower temperature.

😉

Fit an alarm with a remote start feature.

Start the car (while still locked) from inside the house.

Kenlowe do land rover retrofit pre heaters .

You could probably fit a small greenhouse heater (tubular thing) – either a long one on the parcel shelf or a short one discretely below the glove box. You’d need to find a nice way to get power out and plug it in each night – but (1) they are available with a “frost stat / frost protection circuit” built in (so they come on when cold and off when warm) (2) if you turned it on when you got up in the morning (from within the house) then it would probably warm the car reasonably by the time she is ready to leave.

In terms of frozen locks – I’ve not found a perfect solution but (1) regular WD40 did seem to reduce the issue on a car I had which suffered a lot (2) a car of wd40 in the house (and therefore “warm” usually solved it when it was needed. On another car I got completely frozen out for about an hour one morning and nothing worked (-15 deg C). I then squeezed as much vaseline in the lock as I could and never had another problem but it was never that cold again.

Frozen door seals – wiping with vaseline helps but you only want the smallest amount or it gets on clothes etc – essentially apply liberally (to the rubber) and then wipe off as much as you can with a dry cloth. Oil and rubber generally isn’t good in the long term though…

silicone lube on seals – that’s a better way to stop them perishing and freezing than petroleum-based lube.

You have a couple of options… No idea if they are available in the UK but I live in Canada where it gets fairly cold….

My recommendation is for a remote starter; they work well and get the car warm before you leave the house.

A block heater is also great; keeps the engine from getting cold over night so it warms faster in the morning.

For the wind screen some sort of cover would help.

nealglover – Member
Fit an alarm with a remote start feature.

Start the car (while still locked) from inside the house.

Best option yet.

most of the above sounds like a right PITA! Something similar the guy over the way who spent several hours one winter using a leaf vac to hoover the snow out of the way of his car would do, but that’s another story.

Only option: Engine on 10minutes before, with heater on/jug of hot water…she’ll get used to it.

Get a cover for it?
As above, some WD40 keeps locks free of moisture.

tbh

Walk outside, start car.
Walk back inside and get the kids all sorted.
Get a jug of warmish water, walk outside, lock up and pour water over anywhere that still has ice on it.

Any other option either requires a garage, cover or some kinda remote turn on – and its still running.

Walk outside, start car.
Walk back inside and get the kids all sorted.
Get a jug of warmish water, walk outside,

Look at the space where the car used to be and wonder how you’ll explain it to the insurance company. 😐

Starting the car (without special “remote tools”) doesn’t really help when its too frozen to get into. 😡

Are remote start / warmup features only possible on an automatic? (otherwise what happens if left in gear 😮

Don’t leave it in gear….

TBH, your Mrs sounds like a right whiney PITA – tell her to suck it up and defrost the car like the rest of us. Start pandering to her with solutions and it’s the start of a slippery slope.

HTH

Too frozen to get into

Where do you live ? Been to minus 28 at my house and still i got in with minimal fuss

Mtfu

clearly its not how cold it gets thats the problem – anything thats cold enough to freeze can be a pain if its moist enough… it gets to around -35 here and never have a problem but thats because its pretty dry.

I’d go with the warm water and wtfu

Something like this? Block heaters seem pretty common in Canada.

Car won’t be warm but the engine will be so the car will warm up quickly (assuming you can get in!)

TBH, your Mrs sounds like a right whiney PITA – tell her to suck it up and defrost the car like the rest of us. Start pandering to her with solutions and it’s the start of a slippery slope.

🙄 slippery slope to what exactly? Caring for your partner and making their life a bit easier if you can. There’s some right arseholes on here that think the answer to everything is to mtfu.

I would suggest fan heater on a timer plugged into extension lead.

Fan heater sitting on back shelf with extension lead to house.
I did this in 2010, I managed to put the extension cable through the hole where the gas pipe comes into my house, switched it on at the foot of the stairs in the morning and I could roll the extension up and pop it in the white gas meter box outside and go to work. Worked a treat on the windows, but obviously the engine and car heater was still baltic! 😀

Get some earplugs. That way you won’t be able to hear your wife complaining about it.

Also, tell her to warm your car up when she’s doing hers.

SHE doesn’t need to MTFU, more like TTFU. Threads like this remind me how lucky I am to have the wife that I have. She scrapes the ice off all of the windows herself, scrapes the lights, checks that the aintfreeze hasnt frozen and makes sure that the car is safe to drive before she drives off.

An Eberspacher or Webasto heater is what you need, used in campervans for heating and and can be set to turn on with a timer. Not cheap though !

slippery slope to what exactly? Caring for your partner and making their life a bit easier if you can. There’s some right arseholes on here that think the answer to everything is to mtfu

Slippery slope to pandering to every whiney need.

Although my original comment was a bit tongue in cheek, it did have a tinge of seriousness. Really, does Mrs seadog not have time to sort her car before the school run without getting ‘miffsome’?

I might start kicking Mrs STR out of bed at 3am on frosty Monday mornings to defrost my motor before I drive 150 miles to work.

1st world problems and all that!

Well, TBH vociferously expressing opinions about something as simple as this seems a bit harsh. Just trying to make life a bit easier for when I’m away from home for weeks at a time. Mrs SD has suffered from a nasty arthritis type condition since her early 20’s and winter is a horrible time for her.

Anyway, moving swiftly along… It doesn’t get that cold where we are, but the doors do get stuck shut easily, locks work and handles move, just won’t open! Silicon lube on the seals is the way forward I guess.

As for leaving it running, found out elsewhere that it’s illegal, not only insurance scuppering.

Block heater is a good idea but not needed, it starts fine (once you are inside it!) Also found out that all Subbies are fitted for, but not with block heaters.

I reckon it’s the fan heater on the back shelf option. We have an outside cubby hole (coal bunker of old) which has a power point in it, right next to the car, that’ll do the trick with a timer onto it.

Perhaps explaining in your OP that Mrs seadog had nasty arthritis and you were away for weeks at a time, rather than telling us she gets a bit miffsome in a morning would have helped.

In any case, my apologies for my obnoxiousness 😉

Illegal to leave it running? Really? Not relevant but over here people leave cars running all the time. At -20C once it’s on it’s staying on even when the owner is in the nearest Tim Hortons…

As for leaving it running, found out elsewhere that it’s illegal, not only insurance scuppering.

Not with a remote start alarm it’s not.

The vehicle is still locked and alarmed but the engine is running.
Any attempt to move it before the alarm is deactivated and it stalls.

(If left in gear it won’t start obviously)

I had mine fitted for £135.

Start the van from inside the house 10 mins before I need to leave, and its defrosted and lovely and warm when I get in.

Far better for the engine too as its not doing any work until its properly warmed up.

Where do you live ? Been to minus 28 at my house
Um, really? Where do you live?

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/extremes/

Far better for the engine too as its not doing any work until its properly warmed up.

Far WORSE for the engine you mean.

You want to get in and drive it.

+1

Running it straight away and going through the gears is far better for it. It gets everything circulating and up to temperature quicker (apparently)

Running it straight away and going through the gears is far better for it. It gets everything circulating and up to temperature quicker (apparently)

It’s better for an engine to be warmed up before it does any real “work”

Driving it will get it up to temp quicker obviously.

But if you can’t see where you are going, that’s not much use is it.

Cruising a diesel car with around 1200-1500 revs for the first 10 mins of its morning drive before getting on the open road has done my one no harm over the past 12 years.I scrape the ice off and get in the car and head off. I used to pour water over the car,did it for years but it ends up putting more water along door seals,window seals etc where you don’t need extra ice holding the doors closed solid. It also seeps into the locks on older cars so it’s a pain for my car.

Some days the temps would be -5c where I live dropping to -15c at the work place for weeks on end so keeping windscreen wash and kettles of water away made it easier. Some days it was so cold and dry you never even had to use screen wash.

A chamois works wonders inside the car too for instant de-misting.