Quick de-icing advice?

[AnalogueAndy]

Another thought occurs

Regulation 98 of the aforementioned Construction and Use Regs requires "that the driver of a vechile when stationary shall stop the action of any machinery attached to or forming part of the vehicle so far as may be necessary for the prevention of noise or exhaust emissions.

There are some exceptions, one of which is:

where it is necessary to examine machinery following its failure or derangement, or where it is required to be worked for a purpose other than driving the vehicle

Is defrosting included under this? If not then it's illegal to run the engine for that purpose..

[firstmk1]

Do you really worry about this?

[MGF]

We might need to with a recent change in the law that allows LAs to issue fixed penalty notices for Regulation 98 violations, bearing in mind their reputation for enthusiasm for issuing FPNs generally.

[michael769]

In terms of allowing your vehicle to warm up by idling.

99% of all engine wear occurs when the engine oil is below its normal operating temperature, therefore it is desirable to have the engine heat up as fast as possible. The best way to warm an engine up is by driving it normally.

Idling drastically increases the amount of time (and the number of engine revolutions) while the engine oil is below operating temperature. Thus idling will result in additional engine wear which might shorten the engines life.

Diesel engines when compared to petrol engines have much thinker engine blocks with a lot more metal to heat up. It is the extra mass that causes a diesel engine to take a little longer to heat up when idling, where both petrol and diesel engines will produce the same amount of heat energy from combustion.

When the engine is being used to drive the car the amount of heat energy produced from diesel combustion increases faster as the revs rise compared to petrol petrol which means that the diesil actually heat up slightly faster compared to petrol.

As far as de-icer goes: most deicers contain methanol or ethanol which is harmless to paintwork, glass, steel and plastic. There is no problem with using it, however I have found that it does not really make the job of scraping that much easier. The myth that de-icer is bad for paintwork is probably a confusion with anti-freeze which contains ethanediol which is a very effective paint stripper!

You can now buy "night-before" de-icers. These contain a mix of salt-free detergents and kaolin clay which will prevent the ice from bonding to glass. While they do not stop icing up the ice is easy to sweep off with a squeegee. Of course you have to remember to put it on before the freeze and if it rains it can be wiped off. The disadvantage is that they leave a slight transparent film on the glass than can require a few goes of the washers to get it off.

By far the best way to clear your windscreen is to use your garage if you have access to one. On cold mornings I just get the car out and drive off while all of the neighbors are trying to scrape their cars. It also has the bid advantage that in very cold weather the windscreen retains enough residual warmth that ice will not reform before the heaters kick in! Covers and even newspaper can also be effective night before de-icers!

[TripleS]

You can now buy "night-before" de-icers.

I suppose this is the reverse of the thinking that gave us the "morning-after" pill. Just a thought, you know how my mind works....or doesn't.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[martine]

Going back three or four years the Peugeot dealer that I go to was saying something about diesel fired heaters, and he seemed to be implying that such a device - rated at about 1 KW - was fitted on our 406 HDi.

Off-topic but...TripleS: did you see Top gear last night - one of the audience claimed the 406 was the best car ever made...was it you in disguise?

[firstmk1]

...99% of all engine wear occurs when the engine oil is below its normal operating temperature, therefore it is desirable to have the engine heat up as fast as possible. The best way to warm an engine up is by driving it normally....

I thought that the best way to warm an engine is to fire it up and rev it in neutral? The greatest wear occurring when the engine is put under high load, prior to reaching operating temperature.

[crr003]

...99% of all engine wear occurs when the engine oil is below its normal operating temperature, therefore it is desirable to have the engine heat up as fast as possible. The best way to warm an engine up is by driving it normally....

I thought that the best way to warm an engine is to fire it up and rev it in neutral? The greatest wear occurring when the engine is put under high load, prior to reaching operating temperature.

If all these different methods of warming up were important, surely my Astra would have a temperature gauge?
It doesn't, therefore Vauxhall must know something...........?

[jbsportstech]

One thing I noted early on sunday morning is that my passat with its led rear lights needs to be checked on a cold morning as the leds produce no heat on very cold days the lights need clearing as u shoudl do with any lights. With the leds lights I foumd can freeze up again if outside air temps are cold enough. I drove 30 minutes and found my rear lights where frosty again and the effectiveness greatly reduced.

[jont]

If all these different methods of warming up were important, surely my Astra would have a temperature gauge?
It doesn't, therefore Vauxhall must know something...........?

That the average vauxhall owner has no mechanical sympathy?

Most temperature gauges aren't especially helpful when it comes to engine wear - oil temperature is far more important and typically takes 10-15 minutes longer than water to come up to normal operating temperature.

[michael769]

...99% of all engine wear occurs when the engine oil is below its normal operating temperature, therefore it is desirable to have the engine heat up as fast as possible. The best way to warm an engine up is by driving it normally....

I thought that the best way to warm an engine is to fire it up and rev it in neutral?

That would achieve the same affect as driving it normally, except that it wastes fuel and generates additional unnecessary pollution when compared to just driving off.

The greatest wear occurring when the engine is put under high load, prior to reaching operating temperature.

The greatest wear occurs when the oil is significantly below running temperature with the amount of extra wear being related primarily the total number of revs. As each rev generates more heat the faster the engine is running generally higher revs will reduce the total number of 'cold' revs.

Additional wear is caused if the engine is take to very high revs (>90% of maximum in a modern engine) when cold, mainly due to the cold oil's lubricating abilities declining as the revs rise. Modern synthetic oils have reduced this effect of significantly so the need to be gentle with a cold engine is much less than it once was.

Normal moderate driving is by far the best and most efficient way to warm an engine.

[Renny]

If all these different methods of warming up were important, surely my Astra would have a temperature gauge?
It doesn't, therefore Vauxhall must know something...........?

GM are cutting back where ever they can, a lamp is cheaper than a gauge, that most drivers never look at

[TripleS]

Going back three or four years the Peugeot dealer that I go to was saying something about diesel fired heaters, and he seemed to be implying that such a device - rated at about 1 KW - was fitted on our 406 HDi.

Off-topic but...TripleS: did you see Top gear last night - one of the audience claimed the 406 was the best car ever made...was it you in disguise?

I didn't see the programme - I stopped watching it a long time ago - and it wasn't me that made the claim, with or without disguise. I 'm quite happy with the 406, but I wouldn't suggest it's the best car ever made. Most odd.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[waremark]

Additional wear is caused if the engine is taken to very high revs (>90% of maximum in a modern engine) when cold, mainly due to the cold oil's lubricating abilities declining as the revs rise. Modern synthetic oils have reduced this effect of significantly so the need to be gentle with a cold engine is much less than it once was.

Your choice of the 90% figure is interesting. I remember JL teaching that you should avoid using 'the last 1,000 revs' for the first few minutes.

The BMW M cars variable rev limiter/indicated rev limit suggests a much lower level. It starts at about two thirds max revs, although it then moves up quite quickly. The oil temp gauge shows it takes about 15 mins for the oil to reach full temp (indicated 95 degrees), but the rev limit goes up to the normal level much sooner than that. Next time I go out I will try to notice at what oil temp/after how long the indicated limit gets to normal. Of course they recommend synthetic oil for these cars.

[michael769]

Additional wear is caused if the engine is taken to very high revs (>90% of maximum in a modern engine) when cold, mainly due to the cold oil's lubricating abilities declining as the revs rise. Modern synthetic oils have reduced this effect of significantly so the need to be gentle with a cold engine is much less than it once was.

Your choice of the 90% figure is interesting. I remember JL teaching that you should avoid using 'the last 1,000 revs' for the first few minutes.

It obviously varies from engine to engine. Few manufacturers ever bother to test where the thresholds are. We take 90% as a 'good enough' average limit for normally aspirated modern cars using fully synthetic oils which perform almost as well cold as when heated up. For older cars using mineral oil I'd say 75% would be a safer bet.