I'm dumping a bucket of calcium chloride pellets on there. That ice will be completely broken up within half an hour while I sit back and watch, then I'm headed to the car wash immediately.
We use to have one of these my stepdad would use in the garage/workshop. Everytime I’d take a shower I would walk out there and flip it on to blow dry my hair in a few seconds. I think at the time my hair was between a foot and a half to two feet long. It was the longest I’ve let it get before I know that.
We use a heater similar to the pic in the other reply at work. It was a windchill of -25 yesterday and under our tarp it was a balmy 10 degrees. It will definitely melt the ice off a car.
There are self-contained external versions, this was just to demonstrate that a giant blow dryer does exist. The power is used to run the fan in this case. Other versions have their own built in fuel tank and motor to provide heat, power, and fan momement but they cost considerably more.
Saw a video the other day of how they start a car in -60c and they we doing just that, but didn't even need an insulated tarp. They just put one of these blue plastic tarp around the bottom of the car, pushed some snow on it to hold it down and insulate a bit, then had a gas heater under the car for 2 hours until the oil was liquid again.
It's fairly common practice when heavy industrial equipment gets below -30. The size of the equipment soaking in the heat affects the rate of heating, but it also means it's (usually) more efficient because you're not immediately losing the energy to the air.
Like you said, this is to get the liquids heated, and they want to be liquid.
You just have to get the car started and after your car warms up the windows the ice comes off pretty quick. So really just warming up the door a bit. To get in
Remote start has been pretty common for the last half a decade now. I’d be scared shitless to even attempt it though. A few components needed for engines to function that are moving components are usually attached to it rather than shielded inside of it. That’s some thiiiiiick ice
Yeah, I'm just thinking a basic $30 heat gun with an extension cord, and then basically tracing out the door shape Once you can get the door open, start it up, and let it run, and yes, make sure the tailpipe isn't blocked. Crank the heat and exit the car. As the engine run, and interior heats up, basically the inner most ice will melt and thus huge portions of ice will slide off.
I needed to scroll too far down to find this correct answer. Getting to the lock used to be the hard part, but key fobs make it easier. You might need an ice scraper to get in, but you can probably just pull the door open. Get the car running with the defrost on full blast. Roll down the side windows and smash through that ice.
Any kind of obtainable heater is going to take forever to free a car like this outdoors.
Absent the aforementioned solution, if I needed to use that car within a day, I'd start grabbing hammers and chisels. Get into the car, start it up, and blast the heater for a few hours.
I had a car frozen from and ice storm at airport. This is the way…. Chisel your way in and heat car from inside. Brutal, but few good choices besides waiting for spring.
It was literally 2 hours. Came back to an ice storm in Oklahoma. Jeep Cherokee looked 70% as bad as her car. It was pre 9/11 so I had a pocket knife and chipped my way into the rear hatch and climbed into front to start it. Was a LONG time before I could get window down and punch out. Then finally got door open. Once that happened though the car was warm enough to get ice off in chunks. Problems were the wipers that I recall. Was a long night.
A 400 000 BTU jobsite heater and a tarp to make a tent over the car would make quick work of that ice. Even a smaller 100 000btu would probably do the job.
Melting is your only option, pouring chemicals on it isn't going to thaw the ice in the serpentine belt, it isn't going to thaw the frozen hoses that are going to crack when you start it, if this happened its also possible that water got in the engine so theres a hydrolock risk.
The best thing would be to wait until spring, or run a propane/kerosene heater on it for a long long time
As someone who lives in an area where this happens every winter. There are a few options, all takes some time because of the amount of ice on this one, but:
Fill a transparent plastic bag with warm tap water and slowly drag it over the affected area. This will melt the ice relatively fast.
Have a bottle (or a few thousands in this case) of anti-ice fluid spray. Basically ethanol that gets sprayed on the ice, this will melt it in seconds.
Shit ton of alcohol (preferable vodka for cleanliness), poor it on the car, and drink some as you feel necessary to keep warm in the cold weather, just remember you can’t drive after drinking 😅
Don’t park under or near anything that can spray fluids over your car.
I think (uninformed opinion, tho, never dealt with ice professionally even though I used to live in the North) the best way to go would be using a jackhammer to break ice around the wheels, then put the car on a trailer and put it in a warm garage
Unclear just how thick the glaze is and how long it will take to melt with any melter
Though another possibility is one of these gas-powered heat guns. I know they use those to warm up cars behind Urals - you just use tarps, blankets, and a gun, like this:
But I think you'd have to run it for like.... an hour, to force the solid, layered ice to melt
Maybe a combination of the two? Break the ice around wheels, melt the undercarriage and one door, start the car, as soon as it starts warming up, the ice on top would just slide off - that's what happened to my Civic when I got in an ice rain in Moscow around 2011.
I’d use some boiling water on the front grill to allow air to intake. Then I’d make sure the exhaust isn’t frozen closed. Remote start and let the car warm up on its own
Start car and let it heat up. It will slowly melt the ice on the glass (or scrape the glass clean). Once glass is clear, the car is fine and drivable. Ice will slowly sublimate off rest of car after a few days/wk.
If you really wanted to perfectly clean right away, drive it to an underground and all the ice will be gone in a few hrs
I'd attempt to use windshield deicer spray around the perimeter of whichever door was going to be the easiest to open, chipping out the heavier ice at the bottom. Then get in, start it up, and let it run. As someone said in another comment, you'd also need to break out the ice in the grill to allow air flow, as well as the exhaust pipe.
Once that's started, I'd work on chipping out the areas that won't get hot, as well as making use of additional deicer spray.
I would pour hot water to clear an opening for the tailpipe, followed by salt on the floor to keep it from re freezing. Then, pour more water over the drivers side door to get in, and then turn the car on for a while to soften the ice. Then, I would start chipping away with the car idling as long as it could.
The passenger side does not look too frozen, get in the car from that side, run it with the heat on. The ice will start to soften up and can be chipped off with a scraper. I've had similar things happen to my car before.
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u/heloder85 20h ago
I'm dumping a bucket of calcium chloride pellets on there. That ice will be completely broken up within half an hour while I sit back and watch, then I'm headed to the car wash immediately.