Dan

I've had the same concern. If enough ice builds up, I'm afraid the window motor will burn out/break trying to slide the glass down. It will definately jam. Now, I make sure to chip away all the ice before opening the door, what precautions did ford take to avoid breaking the motor?

Dan

Oh, and someone please explain to me how hot water takes less time to freeze than cold water? More enthalpy = more energy that needs to be dissipated. How could it work otherwise? Energy is conserved. Assuming the only heat loss is to the colder surface, and there is no evaporation etc.... hot water has more energy than cold water. More energy takes more time to transfer to that colder surface.
However, this only happens when conduction is allowed to occur.

There are exceptions though.........I found a small writeup about it that you guys will find interesting. Basically, hot or cold water can both freeze first depending on the conditions:



".......Apparently cold water freezes faster than hot water under some circumstances, and under other conditions hot water freezes faster. What's the explanation?

Hot water that is near the boiling point evaporates a lot faster than cold water. As some of this water evaporates, there is less water left behind to freeze, so it won't take as long. But equally important, evaporation requires energy, which comes from the water. As the hot water is evaporating, it is cooling the water that's left behind.

Both of these factors will increase the rate of cooling of the hot water, and under certain circumstances, make it freeze before the cold water does. The special circumstances require that very little of the heat from either sample of water can escape because of conduction. If the heat can escape quickly by conduction, the cooling effect of evaporation won't be enough to make the hot water freeze first. That's why our first experiment with water in pans saw the cold water freeze first ... heat was able to escape through the pans into the ground beneath, and quickly freeze the cold water, which only had to drop 19 degrees to freeze. When we did the experiment again with styrofoam cups, the heat couldn't escape quickly by conduction, since styrofoam is a good insulator. Instead, the extra cooling provided by evaporation caused the hot water to freeze first.

Once again, cold water will freeze first if the heat in it can escape by conduction. Hot water will freeze first if there is very little conduction, allowing evaporation to become the more important cooling effect.

There are of course other factors to consider. For example, boiling the water removed some of the dissolved gases from that sample, and water will cool faster if it contains less dissolved gas. Also, hot water circulates more rapidly (convection), making it easier for the heat to escape. Nevertheless, conduction and evaporation are the two most important factors that determine freezing time.

We first encountered this question when we noticed that skating rinks were often flooded with hot water. The explanation given was that hot water freezes faster, but in that situation, the real reason for using hot water is that it melts the bumps and irregularities on the ice surface, making it smoother. As to whether a thin coat of hot water on ice would really freeze faster than cold water ... we aren't sure. Both conduction and evaporation would have an effect, but which would be the most important factor is unclear, at least to us. Probably both would freeze so fast that it wouldn't make much of a difference anyway. "

Wow, I just realized I'm not on www.howstuffworks.com? TMS is very edumucating.

os121

A friend of mine at work recommended this product to be used on the rubber gasket material. He claims that it will prevent the windows from sticking to the gasket, or the gaskets to the door under icing conditions. I live in the northeast, and have used it on my door gaskets - but we have not had any bad icing conditions yet.

3M Tire Dressing

PS: It also does a great job on the tires !

Daniel_Cline

I think you all, with thisconcern, have a very valid point, and several make good arguments, however, having lived in NY all my life, cars here are no different than cars down south, clod weather and freezing windows and doors have been a problem for years and years and years. The mustnag is not the first car with this window bob and weave thing, if it's cold outside, plan ahead, and never use H2O, you could crack your window

Paris MkVI

Jello is a poor comparison, since other compunds in suspension or solution can alter the substances' response to temperature change.

The key facet of this hypothesis is, ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, hot water will not freeze faster.

I cannot believe I got pulled into this discussion!

zinn

i'm going with convection assisted evaporation as to why warm water can sometimes freeze faster than cold. basically the cold water goes to the bottom while the warm water goes to the top and as the top surface cools it slides down to the bottom exposing more warm water to the top. warm water at the surface can throw off heat energy through evaporation much faster than the cooler water and possibly get the water below it to a close to freezing temp before you lose the effect. but i think you would only see that type of cooling to be very effective in something like an insulated cup not on the surface of a window. I thought it was BS as well untill i read the research papers.

Robert

Just one question: DID FORD...or DID FORD NOT...cold weather test this car?

holderca1

Yes, they cold weather tested the car.

Key thing to remember is look at the name of this thread it says "future problems", until someone has a problem from ice on their windows causing the motor to go out or something, everyone needs to calm down. This isn't a new feature introduced by Ford, BMW has been doing it and it gets plenty cold in Germany.

Badsnke98

Yes, Ford did Robert.

This hot water freezeing faster fact I learned fourty years ago in science class when they had very little to teach us. It has to do with the energy from the hot water escaping fast due to the direct contact with the cold surface and tempeture of the air, plus the thinning out of water to almost zero thick. Get the picture so far? So to cut to the chase, the temp of the hot is slammed down faster than a cold water would, which causes the flash freeze. Like in preservation of food, flash freeze.

Have you people in the north been to the quarter car washes during below freezeing temps and seen the hot water freeze quickly on your vehicle? Your thinking what the heck, I though this was hot water, thats is why I came here to use hot water. Same thing is happening. Handled an ice cube at certain conditions and have the ice cube stick to your fingers? While at other times it melts in your hand. Still not sure what I'm taking about maybe this will help. Jessica Simpsons Hot Moist Tongue sticks to the cold lamp pole instantly? Yea, I know that was fake on the show but, it happens in real life.

Side note the high temp was 5 this past weekend Thursday it will hit 50 depending on the TV station you watch. Got to love Michigan weather changes.

Your GT's windows will survive the changing conditions.

adrenalin

Well recently the temp here has been -15 to -30 and I have had no problems. Sure once the window would not roll down but that does not stop the door from opening or closing. The rubber weatherstrip is flexible enough to "flex" and allow the door to open and close so I am not sure why some of you can't close your doors, or are you afraid to slam the door closed?

07MustangSB

Yes, they cold weather tested the car.

Key thing to remember is look at the name of this thread it says "future problems", until someone has a problem from ice on their windows causing the motor to go out or something, everyone needs to calm down. This isn't a new feature introduced by Ford, BMW has been doing it and it gets plenty cold in Germany. [/b][/quote]
true true....

os121

Update: This past week my car (my other car - the Mustang got the garage) was iced up very nicely by Mom Nature, and this 3M stuff worked great. Previously my doors would stick to the rubber gaskets. It is so nice not to be tearing the gaskets when I open the doors.

roberwel

Just out of curiosity, does the tire dressing leave any type of film on the edge of the window?

I have the same problem here in Buffalo. Some frost developed between the gasket and the glass a week after I picked up th car. I thought I broke something when I opened the door!

05RedGT

I had this problem last week but it wasn't the glass sticking to the gasket - the ice kept the window from dropping when I opened the door.

ford4v429

I'd worried about 'stalling' the motor too- but these windows are controlled by current sensing- I guess if battery TOTALLY dies you have to 'reteach' the windows for the short drop to work correctly- theres a recalibration thing in one of the manuals. every time you open door it bumps a certain amount of current for a certain time, and after closing, bumps up till certain current trips it off(if obstruction hits, its supposed to automatically open a bit- guess so you cant pinch your own arm in it with the rapid up feature...)