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One woman thought she had solved her problem the windshield of the car freezes over with one simple trick, only to realize it was worse than ever.
Anyone who owns a car and lives in an area where temperatures drop in the winter knows the frustration of waiting for your car defrost windshield in the cold, dark, early mornings.
And solving them takes time: heating up water to pour over the screen – which many still do despite warnings that it can damage the glass – reaching for the defroster, or warming the car from the inside.
TikTok user Abbey Clare recently went a different route and decided to place a large piece of cardboard on the windshield at night, hoping this would happen prevent the glass from freezing.
But, as she revealed in a viral video on her page @abbeyclare_ on November 18, things didn’t quite go to plan.
She wrote of the video, which has been viewed more than 15 million times: “I was convinced I had solved the curse of my life.”
But when she pulled the cardboard back, it had stuck to the screen below, wet and then frozen, coming off in damp shreds.
TikTok users reacted with horror, with one user writing that Abbey Clare had “casually installed the barnacle on your own car”.
“Just get a normal windshield cover,” said another, while another sarcastically told her to pour hot water over the windshield in the morning, I hope this helps.”
And another responded in a similarly sarcastic tone: “The car, any car really, comes with a cool feature called a ‘defroster’. What that does is ‘defrost’ or ‘removes’ it. I hope that this helps!”
Others, however, were more sympathetic, as one wrote: “The life lesson we learned is sometimes the only way to know if it works. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Once thawed it will come off easily (sic).”
And another admitted that she initially didn’t see a problem with Abbey Clare’s solution, writing: “No, because my first thought was ‘that’s so clever’.”
Car insurance company The AA advises that the safest way to defrost your vehicle is to use the vehicle’s heater to blow warm air to the windshield and then turn on the air conditioning to remove moisture from the air inside.
When the car starts to warm up and the frost begins to melt, do not enter your house, but use a scraper and defroster on the screen to make the frost disappear faster.
Pouring hot or boiling water on the frozen windscreen risks damaging or cracking the glass, the AA warns. If you leave the engine running and return to your home, you risk having the car stolen.
Newsweek has reached out to @abbeyclare_ on TikTok for comment on this story.
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