Home / Motoring / Buying Guides

The Best Snow Removal Tools for Your Car

The best products for chipping, scraping and digging your way out of the snow and ice before your morning commute.

snow removal toolsCourtesy
Andrew Connor

By Tyler Duffy, Andrew Connor, and Will Porter

Published

·

Updated

Every product is carefully selected by our editors. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more

Winter is a picturesque time of year, and one filled with chances for snowy fun; we love hitting the slopes as much as the next northerner. But walking out to your car in the morning to find it entombed in a layer of snow and ice is one of life’s great annoyances.

You can’t control the weather, and orchestrating a move to a warmer climate may take a bit too long to avoid this winter. What you can do is get some of the best snow removal tools out there to ensure that getting the snow off your car is much less of a pain.

Products in the Guide

Tips for Removing Snow from Your Car

Clear Your Exhaust Pipe

Before you even start the engine, the first thing to do is to make sure your exhaust pipe is clear. The exhaust pipe being clogged with snow can create a backup and cause deadly carbon monoxide — which you can’t detect by odor — to leak into the car. Don’t let that happen.

Clear the Snow

Clear the snow from your roof and windows (you probably want to be able to see once you get going). A tire iron or screwdriver can be handy for clearing ice and snow away from your tires. The chunks of ice you clear may even add a little traction.

Add Traction

Your tires need something to grip. A set of MaxTrax will do the same job they do while off-roading. But if that feels like overkill for your Honda CR-V, you can also keep a bag of salt, sand or a more pet-safe alternative.

Rock Your Car Out

Rocking the car forward and backward can build momentum and help you get the car out. Accelerate forward as far as you can. Reverse as far as you can. Repeat. Make sure to do this gently. The last thing you want to do is gun it, spin your wheels and end up more stuck than before you started.

Let Some Air Out of Your Tires

Softer tires are grippier than harder tires. As a last resort, you can air down your tires a bit to soften them and broaden the tire’s contact patch to get a better grip. Driving that way can be unsafe. So, you want to air them back up as soon as possible. A portable tire inflator could come in handy. The air pump at the closest gas station will also do the trick for cheaper.

snow joe sj627e electric snow throwerWalmart

The Best Value Electric Snow Blower

22-inch 15 Amp Electric Snow Blower with Dual LED Lights

While a snow blower isn’t exactly for snow on your car, it will help you get rid of the snow around it. Our pick for the best electric snow blower, this Snow Joe blower is lightweight, has an extra-wide 22-inch mouth and has LED lights for visibility on early mornings.

Overlanders trust Maxtrax recovery boards to extricate themselves from mud and sand. The same principles apply to snow. These recovery boards are some of the best you can buy — don’t get caught without them.

Good old-fashioned rock salt melts ice and snow quickly and provides a gritty texture for traction. We especially love this one for its affordability.

The best tool for shoveling snow? A shovel. This one from Lifeline only weighs 1.3 lbs and collapses into three pieces for easy storage, making it the optimal choice.

Keeping your hands warm and dry when removing snow is imperative. These Carhartt gloves use a “Storm Defender” textile that’s waterproof while still being breathable, allowing sweat to escape.

SubZero Monster 60-inch Swivel Head Snowbrush and Ice ScraperAmazon

SubZero Monster 60-inch Swivel Head Snowbrush and Ice Scraper

You probably already have a small, handheld ice breaker. But if you have a large truck or SUV, you may need something a little bigger to reach those last bits of snow and ice. This one has a huge reach and makes it easy to switch between the brush and the scraper.

If you really get desperate and don’t have other tools, airing down your tires can increase your contact patch and help you find traction. We love this one because it makes it easy to control the deflation so you don’t overdo it.

After you get unstuck, driving with deflated tires is a bad idea. This compressor plugs into a car’s 12-volt outlet and can refill most tires in two minutes or less. If you do overdo it, this portable compressor is an affordable, reliable option for refilling the tires.

, , ,