I’m not sure why some of my text went to italics. It wasn’t meant to emphasize anything.
I’m not sure why some of my text went to italics. It wasn’t meant to emphasize anything.
What do people do that live in places where this sort of temperature is common so they can still see where they are going?
I have been living with this problem on my 20 years in Bulgaria, where this is a common issue. I've had over a myriad of cars here, and the result is always the same.
If you have a heated screen, it helps keeping the surface "warm", and as also helps a lot of heat/demist vents, but it does not prevent the build-up on the blades.
If you are old-fashioned like me and like the "metal structure" blades, it is even worse, the snow and ice piles up and effectively blocks the blade from touching the glass because the metal structure freezes ... for that only option is to switch to these modern "frame-less" blades. This diminishes the problem.
Heated nozzles do not help, as they only assist in the cleaning of the windshield, not in the removal of muck. However, in my Jimny aeons ago I had my nozzles replaced with "spray-mist" types, and these were great as the anticing solution was "diluting" the build up on the blades. Obviously, the consumption of liquid was staggering.
By the way, no less than -20 concentrate. Anything else will not cut it, and it leaves streaks/marks in the glass as it "freezes" itself. A nightmare if you are not ready for it.
Sometimes, in extreme cases I even do something that I dread, this is come up closer to a TIR (I think in the island you guys call it HGV, in the rest of the world, a truck lol) and be invested by a wave of the roadspray from the trailer. While negative to the bodywork, the slush thrown mixes up and helps clean the build up, as it is all mixed with the salt from the road ... awful.
Only solution: stop, get down, manually unclog the blades, then keep going again until the next time. Terrible, but what to do. I came to hate the white shit, sometimes really want to migrate to a warmer climate where you just melt on the sun...
My worse ever was with my Wrangler, where in addition to all the effects above the piss poor heating was making all the build up remain stuck to the glass, and after a while the blades were not only frozen and blocked with muck, but also unable to swipe in a proper arc ... I came to really hate traveling in winter with it.
That's where I came across these 'heating stripes' for the windscreen, but thankfully I thought better and sold the thing.