Scirocco Central

Hi guys,
At 5am this morning I wanted to go to the gym and to my horror I found out that I could not open the diver door to enter the car as it was frozen and the windows did not drop by a few millimetres.
This meant that I could not enter the vehicle and and was going no where in the freezing cold.
I prepared the car last week with a generous application of Gummi Pflege Rubber Care as advised but obviously that has not prevented exactly the situation I was trying to avoid!!!
I repeatedly pressed the lock and unlock button with no luck!
I did not want to force the door open to avoid causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage to the car!!!
Well, I had to wait for the car to defrost before I was able to drive away and this is not a good situation to be in especially if it had been an emergency!
Please may I ask you guys if anyone had a similar experience and how it can be avoided for the rest of this winter.
Many thanks.
Jay

I applied gummi pflege to all the rubber sills on the outside of the car and the rubber bit inside that runs along where the window rests when it's up. I also applied it to the top of the window and kept making the windows drop and go back up. That way it got inside the sill where the window rests. No problems with it sticking with me. And we had some major frosts the other day. Dropped straight down.

jayroc wrote:Hi guys,
At 5am this morning I wanted to go to the gym and to my horror I found out that I could not open the diver door to enter the car as it was frozen and the windows did not drop by a few millimetres.
This meant that I could not enter the vehicle and and was going no where in the freezing cold.
I prepared the car last week with a generous application of Gummi Pflege Rubber Care as advised but obviously that has not prevented exactly the situation I was trying to avoid!!!
I repeatedly pressed the lock and unlock button with no luck!
I did not want to force the door open to avoid causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage to the car!!!
Well, I had to wait for the car to defrost before I was able to drive away and this is not a good situation to be in especially if it had been an emergency!
Please may I ask you guys if anyone had a similar experience and how it can be avoided for the rest of this winter.
Many thanks.
Jay

Simple solution if at home is to use lukewarm water, definitely not cold water as it will freeze again, just very slightly warm to the touch.
It wont crack car glass or harm paint or rubber. I've been doing it for more than 50 years and at up to minus 15.
At the moment I'm doing it every day.

Dave.

I had this a week ago, I got a plastic spreader card I use at work & went along the top of the window. Got to the petrol station & couldn't get in that either. Spreader to the rescue as I 'cut' my way around it & inside lol

Warm water and a squeezy bottle. Go round the whole edge of the window and it'll pop open.

You can actually pull the door open if the glass hasn't dropped but to reset it you need to drop the window the whole way first before you close the door again.

If your usung gumi pflege then you shouldn't have any problem like i said. I have even got people at my work onto this stuff and they all rate it highly. Since iv been using it havnt had the need for warm water.

Apart from when the windscreen is like a block of ice and takes 10 years to defrost then occasionally i will use luke warm water to defeost it.

I keep my scraper and de-icer in the boot for just this reason

Using a half car cover solves the problem for me. It takes 1 min to put on (unlike those annoying full covers) because it just covers your front, side, back windows, mirrors and door handles. You don't lose the enthusiasm to do it every night because its quick, it doesn't flap about in the wind scratching your paint (because its small and a good fit), cost very little and is quick to dry.

No frozen windows (every time), door mirrors, locks, cheap and one person can put it on and off............recommended!!!

Gummi Pflege Rubber Care is ok but doesn't always work unless you use loads. This just leave horrible smears on you windows that restrict your view in the blinding winter sun.

Are you sure you applied gummi to where the glass makes contact with the rubber?

My windows stuck in frost few weeks ago. Gummied them up again, back came the frost/ice but no stuck windows.

Once it was stuck and I pulled the door open anyway (had no choice) and the window was fine and I could get in.

Not ideal obviously long term but it can be done if necessary.

Lukewarm water for me always does the trick. Been doing it for about 10 years on frameless cars lol.

I find luke warm water does work but will occasionaly flash freeze again (making it worse), if you don't immediately put your heaters and wipers on after applying it. You can't do this with side windows and you can end up with what now appears to be something similar to black ice on them, this is extremely difficult to scrape off so out comes the Luke warm water again and a blade to wipe it straight off.

Admittedly this only tends to happen on really cold mornings.

sciroccorich wrote:I find luke warm water does work but will occasionaly flash freeze again (making it worse), if you don't immediately put your heaters and wipers on after applying it. You can't do this with side windows and you can end up with what now appears to be something similar to black ice on them, this is extremely difficult to scrape off so out comes the Luke warm water again and a blade to wipe it straight off.

Admittedly this only tends to happen on really cold mornings.

Maybe try pouring it very slowly so it transfers it's heat to the glass, mine never re-freezes though I do use a full 10 litre watering can which does all the windows.
You are quite right, you have to get moving immediately!
Dave.