Wednesday 3rd December 2008

This Is No Ordinary Ice Scraper...

This is a Saab ice scraper

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Cool gadget

Sitting shivering in your car on wintry mornings waiting for the heater to warm up and blasting the ice off the screen has got to be one of the least pleasant aspects of motoring. But did you ever stop to think about the environmental cost of running your engine for those extra four minutes or so?

Saab has thought about the problem quite a lot, it seems, and has launched ‘the world’s most luxurious ice scraper’ to encourage you to take the environmentally-responsible manual option.

Enter the Funk-Is, which Saab is billing as a cooler and more functional alternative to the CD cases and credit cards that are typically pressed into service on freezing mornings.

Made of thick frosted plexiglass with sharp diamond cut edges, the Funk-Is has a plough-shaped blade and a special groove for clearing snow and ice from the wiper blades. It also has an ergonomic – and crucially warm – grip made from leather and lambswool. We told you they’d thought about it a lot!

Get your hands on this essential bit of winter kit at your local Saab dealer, or via www.saab.com . Or you could write a letter to Santa.

[kieronj]

That grip will soon shed its luxury charm and feel more like a ladies toiletry once its soaked and soggy with thawing ice.

[pits]

im still going to run my car for the 5 mins anyways to make it warm in there...theres is akways a tin of de icer aswelll.....pretty pointless product imho

[drewcole81]

Thnink i'll stick with the luke warm water option and the anitfreeze in the wipers and drive off right away rather than this.

[Mr Whippy]

I've thought about the problem too. It's called 4 pints of luke warm water with the wipers on

Dave

[Funk]

I am what?

[tridave]

So Saab are in trouble - and think about a ice scrapper ??

[UKDavo]

You Brits and your useless clearing methods. Get a scraper and wear a glove (no need for that lambswool nonsense, if it's cold enough to put ice on your windows, who's scraping ice and snow with a bare hand?).

How about clearing ALL your windows for a change as well, so you can actually SEE out of them. Much easier/faster than actually running your frozen wipers while pouring 4 litres of "lukewarm" water across your windscreen. Crazy.

(the only man in England with a snow brush, ha-ha.)

[TheDetailDoctor]

I think they are really scraping the bottow of thebarrel with that one.......

[corcoran]

I'm not old enough to own anything with 'saab' on it..

[mmm-five]

I treat all my windows with Rain-X and find the ice comes off much easier - only ever have to use a rubber squeegee type of scraper.

[Mr Whippy]

UKDavo said:

How about clearing ALL your windows for a change as well, so you can actually SEE out of them. Much easier/faster than actually running your frozen wipers while pouring 4 litres of "lukewarm" water across your windscreen. Crazy.

Erm, it takes about 30 seconds, and I can clear all six pieces of glass with four pints.

Scraping takes an age, and you risk pushing material over the screen that can scratch it. Scraping really is a caveman technique that should have been forgotten years ago. I see no advantage unless you have no access to warm water and a small container...



Saab would be better off fitting front heated screens to all their cars than making st like that.

Dave

[nav p]

They should be designing proper cars...let halfords do the ice scrappers!

[The Milfman]

Funk said:

I am what?

[LeoZwalf]

Yes but think of the extra Co2 output of your car if you had to run a heated from windscreen too.

Seriously though - what the fk?? "Taking the environmentally friendly option" to getting rid of the ice on the windscreen??? Do people actually buy into all this Co2 bullst which invades our lives every sodding day nowadays?!!

What about the extra energy used to design and make these things? I would put a fair amount of money on the fact that it created more Co2 (that in itself is so much BS) to make this stupid pissy gadget than would be created if everyone who switches to it ran their engine for a few minutes to heat the heater up.

ARGH!

Urine simmering nicely now

[snafusoft]

"Sitting shivering" - Trying saying that quickly whilst scraping the ice off

[grim_d]

it wont make scraping ice from the inside of my windscreen any less embarassing.

[Wilburo]

I thought this was actually pretty cool.

This I saw that it was £38.13.

On a cold day in hell etc.

[madeinsheffield]

Lukewarm water, get wipers on before it freezes up again drive past neighbour who is still scraping after 10 mins

[Gio G]

Luke warm water works everytime, scrapping is too much like hard work in the morning..especially when your late..

Morning procedure:

Engine on.
Bum warmers on (essential)
Heat on max
Two litres of warm water, with windscreen wipers going and were off...

However, I do miss my old porker, where it had a heated steering wheel...that was nice..

[TonyHetherington]

My bro has the best scraper ever. It's a Cartman inspired one (as in the fat kid from Southpark) and it's basically a glove with a scraper attached to the end of it.

Brilliant.

The SAAB one above surely will just have your hannds still getting cold and horrible, and that lovely fluffy lambswool bit will get soaking wet (ice is water, eh?) and therefore cold in seconds?!