Winter brings with it a combination of rather horrible weather conditions that make a clear windscreen both more important and more difficult to maintain than at perhaps any other time of the year.

As it is also illegal under Rule 229 of the Highway Code, it is vital to ensure you can see clearly out of your windscreen, and you can potentially receive a fine and points on your license if your windscreen is deemed to be too obscured.

With so much to do between work, Christmas shopping and holiday travel, a frosty windscreen can be an unacceptably frustrating delay, which has led to some rather suspect methods being used to clear the frost, as found by eBay’s research team and published by Business Motoring.

The worst of these is pouring boiling water onto the glass, which can cause it to shatter and require an immediate replacement before you can travel again. According to research from eBay, 19 per cent of motorists have tried this at least once.

Similarly, 18 per cent of motorists have left their car running without being inside it, which not only risks it being stolen but is also illegal under the Highway Code.

However, a more common but still rather dubious approach is to use the windscreen wipers as an ice scraper.

This can make sense and seem more convenient than using a manual scraper, but it can actually cause damage to your windscreen and the wipers themselves.

Attempting it can cause the wipers to scrape against the ice, potentially damaging and bending them, whilst also straining the electric motor that causes them to move across the windscreen.

At worst, it can create scratches and smears that can make your windscreen even harder to see out of.

What Other De-Icing Methods Can Damage Your Windscreen?

• Pouring hot water directly onto the windscreen.
• Smearing a potato onto the inside of the windscreen.
• Wiping the screen with a cloth.
• Using a metal ice scraper.