Why do you put your wipers up before it snows?
- Thread starter TiGeo
- Start date
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
Control what one can. I have been in like situations before, and having the wipers not glued to the windshield is force multiplier when getting the vehicle ready to do its mission.You have a lot more issues than your wipers here
We'll living in Wisconsin all my life it's becoming more do almost than don't.
In winter storms if vehicle is disabled in the ditch you are told by the sheriff's office to do so it might be the only thing to identify a vehicle.
Doug knows what's up...
https://jalopnik.com/why-do-people-stick-up-their-wiper-blades-in-the-winter-1755681765
https://jalopnik.com/why-do-people-stick-up-their-wiper-blades-in-the-winter-1755681765
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
I suspect people struggling to answer the wipers up question just might also struggle seeing things through others eyes (empathy).
There are listless reasons to put wiper blades, as @#18FAN pointed out as a way for others to see a vehicle in a emergency situation, someone living in a high crime area parking outside needing to reduce the warm up time, one can go on and on.
I’m from Syracuse originally but spent a few winters in the Winnipeg/Selkirk areas and now I’m in the DC area/NOVA. We laugh at the wipers up folk. Never saw that in Manitoba or NY.
Buddy in NY tells me the same...not something they do. How do they manage?
Passers by can mess with your blades anyway. Or your valve stem, lug nuts, license plate... Humans are mostly good and mostly don't.
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
I am in no way saying you do have empathy issues. I am not a behavioral health professional.
I do it most of the time. If at home I'm letting the car warm up for a half hour anyhow, I'm not moving without heat. But if I'm parked at the airport in the winter, I walk out to my car, start it up, clear the snow/ice from the windows and try to go slowly. The wipers would definitely not be unfroze by the time I go. I don't think pulling the wipers up from a frozen window is that great for the blades either, but what do I know? I see lots of cars at Denver and Colorado Springs airport with their wipers up, I never have heard or seen anyone messing with them.
I guess I shouldn’t mention that I also put cardboard down on my windshield if it’s going to snow or ice so I don’t have to waste time waiting for the car to defrost. Remove cardboard and I’m on my way.
It is futile
I don't get it either. Maybe it has to do with a preconceived notion that ice will damage the rubber blades? That would be my guess.
Before beam blades were common, it ripped the heck out of old style wiper refills. Like all the time.
So I suppose maybe my assuming is right, and the practice today is just learned behavior taught by generations past?
Or I just saw someone doing it and said, hey that looks like a good idea and I did it ever since. lol, I don't remember anyone ever teaching it to me. I can't do it on my square body trucks, and none of the Trax wipers can even do it with the hood clearance so they didn't even design that into the arms.
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GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
I use to wonder in disbelief why people raised their wipers with a storm of freezing rain, ice, snow, and dropping temperatures.
Living in a Alaska rainforest during the winter definitely shed light on why people raised their wipers when a freezing rain, ice, snowstorm is enroute, with temperatures dropping to follow.
The older that I get, the less that I drive in foul weather. My neighbor warms his car up for like 20 to 30 minutes in the winter. I get in and go. The only time that I warm up my car is if it's snow or ice covered and it's a safety consideration to have heat and a clear windshield.
I don't do it - too paranoid that something will cause the blades to snap back down and damage the windshield.
I do, however, keep a bottle of deicing fluid in the car to spray on the blades while I'm cleaning the rest of the car. So far it hasn't let me down.
I do, however, keep a bottle of deicing fluid in the car to spray on the blades while I'm cleaning the rest of the car. So far it hasn't let me down.
When you go from above freezing on the glass, which will happen even with the car parked on a sunny sub-freezing day, to below freezing after sundown with any sort of precipitation the wipers will absolutely freeze to the glass.
And no, the defroster alone will not free them in any reasonable length of time.
And no, the defroster alone will not free them in any reasonable length of time.
