Snow and ice no no's. Common issues that can cost you money

Ok. i have to do this. Every year i do the same winter repairs over and over again to the unsuspecting customer that thinks their stupidity should be covered under warranty.
The info provided is in hopes you guys will not do the things and find yourself paying out of pocket for something and hopefully save you some money.


a/ Wipers are for moving water, they are not ice scrapers
Every night that might freeze you need to start off by making damn sure your wipers are off when you shut your car off. If you turn the ignition on the next day and the wipers are still on they will try to move and if they are frozen or iced over you will bust your wiper linkage. This is a very common winter repair. People come in and the wipers only move by hand. The linkage busts because wipers get stuck on ice and the motor just does its job and continues to move even if the wipers stop.
avg price $200

b/ Your frozen doors. If its frozen, stop. Quit being the goof that pulls and yanks at the handle. The handle is attached to a very small rod and thats it. the person that pulls on the door handle til the door opens is the person that buys a new exterior door handle. You need to pull up on the handle and then find the lower portion of the door and try to get your fingers in there and pull on the door, not the handle. If it is too rough, quit. Climb in another door.
Avg price $200 non painted, painted $300

c/ Exterior lenses need to be ice free. First off its the law. Secondly bulbs give off heat. That heat must disperse somehow. The lens's are designed to allow this to happen however with snow and ice it causes a sort of sauna inside the lens. Bulbs will go out more frequently, lens's will melt, and even harness's can melt a bit.
avg price $10 bulb, $200 lens, $50 or so for connector/harness

d/ Scraping noises while turning and highly imbalanced wheels out of nowhere.
Remember .50 oz can be felt on most cars of imbalance. Too many people come in in the winter time and wonder why all of a sudden they're wheels vibrate. It might have something to do with the 20 lb's of snow and ice inside the wheel and all the packed ice inside the tread. If the wheel isnt clean and free of debri it will be out of balance. Gravel dust, ice, snow, even rocks in the tread will cause the balance of the wheel to be off.
Scraping noise is normally caused by ice accumulating on the wheel well and people ignoring it. Then the tire scrapes the ice. Not only is this loud, and damaging to the tire, it can stop the wheel from turning if there is enough ice there and making a turn at high speeds and ice stopping you, is a bad thing.
wheel balance $50

e/ windows
If there is even a small hint that your window is frozen, dont use it. If you hit that button and the window doesnt move stop. More than any repair i do in the winter is window regulators. The regulator will snap and bust in a heartbeat. 2 things can happen here. Either the cable will snap, or the clamps that hold the window will break free and your window will drop to the bottom of the door (sometimes breaking).
avg price regulator $200, window can be up to $400

f/ keep ice off your brakes
First off the rotors are extremely hot. Too hot to touch for about 15 min after use. It doesnt need one patch of ice on it. This is a major cause of warpage. This is like squirting your overheating engine with cold water.
Secondly the pads are a friction material. The brakes operate by applying to the rotor and the friction stops the car. Can you walk up a water slide? What makes you think the brakes can do their job effectively with a sheet of water between the pad and rotor?
Rotor warpage roughly $300 if not resurfacable

g/ This ones not so bad. If its below freezing dont use your washers. Yes rain x and prestone make some deicer stuff thats pretty good but most blue washer fluid is primarily water. There is a small pump in the resevoir and it will ice over. If you attempt to hit the pump with ice in the resevoir you normally will damage the pump. Sometimes you can wait til a thaw and it'll work again but most times you'll damage it. I frequently have to pull pumps out and run hot water through resevoirs to deice them for customers. This can take an hour to remove the pump and flush the system and we cant charge the customer for something like that so its basically just me being nice (however that takes me off of paying work)
pump under 100 installed for sure

Hopefully this will help you guys out a bit. None of the above problems are covered under warranty. Wipers are not ice scrapers, the tire balance is balanced on the machine without snow not with and on and on.

Everyone will pretend like they dont do the stuff but probably 6 out of 8 hours a day in the winter time i'm working on these above issues.
Good luck gang and quit wasting money