Anybody have any problems with the active rear spoiler when it gets icy? Just curious...I haven't had any problems yet, but we had some ice last week and it made me wonder what would happen if heavy ice kept the spoiled from raising automatically since there is no way to disable the activation at 50 mph.

 

its been quite cold here most nights leaving work car was registering single digits for outside temps as for as spoiler goes no problems here, but what little snow we have gotten i always remove before driving.

 

Wow, how much trouble is it to remove? I seldom have seen mine up except when I manually raise it to wash underneath and I didn't notice how it is attached. Seems like a lot of trouble to me. If I know it there going to be ice or snow I'll drive my 4WD Ram 1500 but was just wondering what would happen if there was a surprise ice storm while I was at work and the spoiler got frozen shut.

 

If you're going fast enough for the raised spoiler to actually have significant
aerodynamic effect (e.g. > 75 mph) in freezing weather with heavy snow about,
I think that's the least of your worries.

 

I'm not concerned about aerodynamic effect. My concern is whether the mechanism would be damaged when it is frozen down with heavy ice and tries to deploy at 50 mph. It is certainly plausible that the roads could be cleared enough to drive that fast yet the ice on the spoiler not melted.

 

This is exactly why I wish the darn thing would STAY UP if you put it up (and go over 50 and then slow down). It would solve this problem completely.

It would allow you to put it up when it's freezing (along with your windshield wipers!) and then you wouldn't have to worry about the spoiler. It's up if you are going over 50, but it wont try to crunch through ice when you slow down.

I'm lucky to always have a garage to park in at home and work, but that doesn't mean I wont EVER have to park outside ;P Maybe a software tweak?

 

Silly i remove all frozen SNOW from the car not the spoiler. i have seen horrible accidents when people leave the frozen snow on their vehicle and let it fly off on highway.

 

Well duh, just color me stupid. I should have known better but with some of the extreme things I have read about other MINI owners doing to take care of their vehicles I guess wasn't surprised when I misinterpreted what you were saying.

 

I can certainly see the OP's concern if freezing rain caused a onerous layer of clear ice, where you wouldn't want to be chipping it off for fear of damaging the body.

If it's thick enough to stick the doors closed it's not hard to imagine that you could burn up the spoiler motor if it's frozen over in any position.

 

Partly joking here, but what about using the sort of de-icing fluid that's used for airplanes? A quick search shows lots of suppliers in quantities from 5 gallons to 55-gallon drums and more. Wikipedia has the lowdown at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deicing_fluid.

 

Strange you should mention this, but my company sells an aerosol deicer and I didn't start this thread with the intent to sell product. We sell it primarily to the Federal Government but it is available from our web site in case quantities only. The primary ingredients are methanol and ammonia so it's probably no worse for your car finish than windshield washer fluid or glass cleaner. The propellant for the aerosol is nitrogen which is an inert gas. I've used it to melt a frozen car door in the past with no problems to the paint but you might want to wash it off as soon as you can just like you would do with salt on your finish. It might remove wax so re-waxing might be advisable. All of this comes from a non-technical finance guy, so use at your own risk, however, I haven't experienced any problems. BTW, my company is a not-for-profit providing jobs for people who are blind so your purchase would support our mission.

Here is the link to the product on our web site. http://shop.lhbindustries.com/ShowPr...efroster+Fluid

 

I recently had my spoiler frozen down and can say that it's a real pain in the ear. As soon as you first hit 50 and the spoiler can't move then, on my car with Visual Boost (aren't all US cars like this), it produces three visible warnings plus the dreaded bonging. So the display panel in the tacho and the whole speedo screen are locked out by dire warnings saying "slow down, go to dealer, end of world is nigh, etc".

Drop below 32 (or is it 38?) and the warnings do not stop.

Stop completely and the warnings do not stop.

Stop and switch off and the warnings do stop - but start again as soon as you drive off, even if you don't go over 50.

Are you getting the picture? Going psycho with the bonging is quite possible.

Once the spoiler unfroze, everything went back to normal and no damage was done - well, except for the little twitch in the corner of my eye......

PS If I put mine up manually, it stays up forever, until I manually put it down.

 

Hi All:

Current 2012 MCS hatch owner. Got the bug to sell the hatch and do a JCW roadster as my only car. I live in Lansing, Mi.....some snow and some cold. I only work part-time nowdays, mostly retired and my garage is finished and heated. I have a second set of wheels with snows and I know the handling aspect of the car will be just fine in the winter, but wondering about heat loss through the top, drafts, etc. or any other issues that I haven't thought about. Would like to hear from some up north winter Roadster owners that are driving the car year round. Thanks in advance for your input!

 

I'm not quite as far north as you (41.26 degrees N), but think the car is just fine, even during our recent cold spell. With heated seats and the interior "climate control" set to auto, the car heats up quickly and is plenty toasty. No noticeable drafts. Front & rear window defrosters work well, too.

When we want to be warm, this is the car we take, as opposed to the cavernous SUV that takes forever to warm up.

 

Yeah, I wanted to put extra emphasis on this. The air-tightness of the soft top, at least in my experience, is nothing short of amazing.

 

The canvas top is very airtight, surprising for being a single layer. It was 2 degrees when I left for work this morning, and I never have the sensation of cold around my head. I find the Roadster to be quite comfortable as a daily driver. The small cabin heats up quickly, and the heated seats are almost too hot.

I have had no problems with the spoiler thus far...we'll see. We have a bit of winter to go still here in Chicago.


-Steven

 

My spoiler was frozen in the down position this morning. The constant alarm was annoying. I was going about 70 at one point and noticed no difference in handling.

 

I have yet to have mine freeze. Mine stays in a garage at night, and then by time i get to work the exterior of the car is frozen so there's nothing to freeze down spoiler. It has snowed a bunch on it at work, but just brush off the snow and spoiler not frozen. It seems their design is pretty decent to allow water to drain out from underneath, however if there's freezing rain leaving layers of ice on it I'm sure that keep it down, but I'd also think driving on layers of ice would not be very feasible either. I choose not to drive it when it's sorta warm and there's melting going on to keep it cleaner and help keep salt off the roof(I have no clue if it would stain) and I'm sure those are the times when the possibility of freezing would occur.

 

Just reporting: The roadster does sleep in the garage every night but outside of that it is driven every day in all weather and so far freezing spoiler has not been an issue for us yet. Of course it has not seen icing yet as shown on Gil-galad's picture...

 

Hate this!

 

No problems to report here. Functions as it should in all crazy Chicago weather conditions, and believe me, we've had our share this winter.

 

Mine has been OK too. We don't usually get sleet or freezing rain here, so it's just snow removal. My garage gets a bit of heat leakage from the house so it's normally just a few degrees above freezing so it thaws out overnight as well.

 

My recommendation is before you shut the car off, put the spoiler up (along with your wipers). I did this during the Portland snowstorm this year and it worked fine. When I started the car up, I made sure to flip the spoiler switch so that the green light was lit (so the car wouldn't try to raise and lower it).

Once again, it would be nice if the "up" setting was persistent through shutting the car off.

 

I had this problem last winter. The ringing drove me crazy, mine was stuck up. As soon as I got it warm, it went down. It does seem to be a reoccurring issue. It seems to take a specific set of circumstances.

I put it up on here last year.

 

The warning system was designed by a sadist, that's for sure. After it has been triggered, even if you stop and switch off the car, the warning starts as soon as you move off, even below 50mph. The only thing that cancels it is if you raise/lower the spoiler, after which everything returns to normal.

I think of a small, obsessive, easily-annoyed German person being installed somewhere inside the dashboard and find that this explains how most of these systems work. I don't actually talk to him - well, not a lot.......