Has anyone actually cracked their windscreen with hot water

[dirky dirk]

Seems a myth, probably by the de icing companies,

in thirty years of winters mines never cracked,
has anyone elses?

[Butter Face]

No. My neighbour commented this morning asi cleared mine with warm water and he scraped his with a blade.

[Shakermaker]

Mine neither

I thought it was back from the days of non-laminated screens and people using boiling water straight from the kettle that would do it, but even then I never actually met anyone to whom this happened, just anecdotes.

Warm tap water from a jug or bottle does the job for me

[Thankyou4calling]

Gavin from Autoglass said it will happen.

It won’t!

[p4cks]

Warm water should be fine.

Boiling water I really wouldn't want to risk; I'm also sure that due to the Mpemba effect can freeze quicker than warm water

[ShyTallKnight]

Yep, but it was about 30 years ago on a mk2 astra GTE

[ColinM50]

Been de-icing with WARM water for near on 50 years and only once had a crack and that was when the screen on my new A reg Cavalier already had a crack in it and the warm water made it spread. Quite magnificent watching it creep down the screen from a small one inch crack to the full depth in about a minute. Could hear it cracking too.

Still use the warm water cure and nothing since

And not related to Gavin at Autoglass either

[Plate spinner]

Warm water from a jug, never once had an issue.

Got to set off sharpish though.
Get distracted for 5mins and it freezes up again!

[Krikkit]

Yes, but only when it was already severely chipped. Never had a decent screen have a problem.

[Gio G]

Same here, never boiling hot water, just run the hot water tap and fill up a large bottle.. Hearing the retired old neighbour spending 15 minutes de-icing his car with a scrapper, clearly he has time...

G

[ambuletz]

years back i cracked the windscreen on my mk3.5 fiesta once using tepid/slightly warm water. went from the outside to the middle, went round the other side of the car and did the same. as soon as i reached the middle CRACK. right in the middle of the windscreen going vertical.

[Muddle238]

I have, but with cold water.

It was during a heatwave about ten years ago, I was washing the car which had been out in the sun all day. When I poured cold water from the hose pipe over the windscreen, I heard a pop and thought I'd seen the roof panel flex slightly. Only when I was drying the windscreen later did I notice a crack that had stemmed at the top, by a little stone chip/rust spot on the roof panel. The crack had spread across the screen almost touching both A pillars.

Always take care now with washing my cars on hot days.

[hman]

lol watch out the ice rink you guys are going to make using water on your freezing cars - the ground will still be cold 🥶

When I lived over there I just used a sheet of plastic on the screen overnight and removed it before driving away with a bone dry clear windscreen

[jonwm]

My wife is the supervisor at a windscreen place H/O...

in the 8 years of working there she has never had a call from a hot water damaged one.. she does however fend lots of call from people insistent upon replacing their 10 year old BMW screen with a "genuine" BMW one

[Dave Hedgehog]

you would imagine it would only crack if there was damage or defect to the glass

[fttm]

Many years ago , Citroen CX Safari , right in the centre top to bottom .

[KrazyIvan]

Dave Hedgehog said:

you would imagine it would only crack if there was damage or defect to the glass

This. My dad did it a few years ago to his x3, it had a really bad stan chip and he poured HOT water straight from the kettle, cracked from the stone chip to the edge of the glass about 6 to 7 inches long.

Never had an issue with WARM water, as in out of the hot tap so probably only 35-45 degrees.

[SouthHamsGaz]

Nope.
In winter I always use hot tap water chucked straight over the work van. The screen regularly has existing cracks or stone chips that never get any worse by doing this.

[austinsmirk]

I just walk around the car, pouring very luke warm water from the kettle. been fine for 30 years ! I never get people scraping the ice off- in fact you'd think it would scratch the glass.

my wife has solved the problem- with an EV- just turn the heater on from within the house from a phone app. car defrosts itself, puts heated seats/steering wheel on. car stays locked- no engine chucking fumes out for 5-10 mins.

happy days.

[xjay1337]

I had a pretty big chip and whether it was just because of the cold / freezing or not, but when I used cold water this windscreen it did develop into a small crack which caused the windscreen to be replaced.


This morning I just used cold water and will continue to do so !