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why would you put a bunch of salt on your car to clear the windows when a Ice scraper is the proper tool for the job while clear off the all snow and ice and if you have a block heater plug it in.
Also if you have old battery replacing it with a new battery or getting a trickle charger on it overnight will also help on cold morning hard starts and best way learn how to drive or how your vehicle tends to behave in the snow is to go to a empty parking lot practice how to react and the limits of the vehicle and brush up on your winter emergency driving skills.
I see no point in "turning on" the heat until there is heat to turn on. I can't count how many times I've gotten into a car with someone else and asked them why they are blasting us with ice cold air in the winter.
Putting salt on the windshield is the dumbest thing I have heard of. Not only does it create corrosion of your vehicle, but salt does not work when the temperature reaches -20 degrees and colder. How about when you get freezing rain that immediately turns to ice on your windshield while you are driving? In this case there is no recourse but to pull to the side of the road, crank the heat as high as possible "on defrost," and scrape the ice off after the windshield has warmed a little.
And there is another problem related to defrost use: sooner or later the hot air on the cold windshield will crack the glass. This is a normal occurrence in Alaska. Happened to a 2009 Forested I had, and to my wife's 2010 Rav 4.
Putting salt on the windshield is the dumbest thing I have heard of. Not only does it create corrosion of your vehicle, but salt does not work when the temperature reaches -20 degrees and colder. How about when you get freezing rain that immediately turns to ice on your windshield while you are driving? In this case there is no recourse but to pull to the side of the road, crank the heat as high as possible "on defrost," and scrape the ice off after the windshield has warmed a little.
And there is another problem related to defrost use: sooner or later the hot air on the cold windshield will crack the glass. This is a normal occurrence in Alaska. Happened to a 2009 Forested I had, and to my wife's 2010 Rav 4.
Locally the city is saying that brine on the roads doesn't do much below 18 degrees.
Also the physics of weight distribution over drive wheels. People with front-wheel drive cars should know that you get more traction on a hill if you drive wheels at the lower end of the car, pushing the car up the hill. If the hill is steep, you'll have more traction backing up.
If your car is rear-wheel drive, you can improve winter traction with a couple hundred pounds of sand bags in the trunk, but there is nothing you can do if it is front wheel drive.
Also the physics of weight distribution over drive wheels. People with front-wheel drive cars should know that you get more traction on a hill if you drive wheels at the lower end of the car, pushing the car up the hill. If the hill is steep, you'll have more traction backing up.
If your car is rear-wheel drive, you can improve winter traction with a couple hundred pounds of sand bags in the trunk, but there is nothing you can do if it is front wheel drive.
The only place for salt on a car is in strong bags in the trunk of a RWD car or bed of a pick up. Use salt to preserve cod fish not cars.
The article provided reasonable advice but I did not note if it recommended four good snow tires (with studs if ice is common). This will help more than anything else even if you have an AWD like a Subaru. I also use a gas treatment like Startron in the winter to avoid gas line and injector plugging.
As mentioned the best way to learn how your car handles skids is to get in to some on an snow covered empty parking lot. It requires balancing steering, braking and power to make the car go where you want instead of where inertia wants. I have been driving snow and ice covered roads for over 50 years and I still go out every Fall and practice after the first snow.
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