The 3 Best Ice Scrapers and Snow Brushes of 2025 | Reviews by Wirecutter

Mar 25, 2025

By Tim Heffernan

Tim Heffernan is a writer who covers air and water quality and sustainable-energy technology. He prefers Flare-brand match smoke for purifier testing.

We have two picks depending on the size of your vehicle: the Hopkins SubZero 80037 for full-size SUVs and pickups, and the OXO Good Grips brush for cars and compact SUVs.

Freeing a car of snow and ice is an annual chore in many parts of the US, but—judging by an informal poll of Wirecutter staffers—a lot of people have only ever used the cheapest, lamest ice scrapers they could find. If you live where it regularly snows, the small cost of a high-quality, durable tool makes the chore a whole lot easier.

Efficient at clearing ice and sweeping snow, with a 5-foot reach for clearing high roofs and wide hoods, this scraper is best for trucks and SUVs.

A sharp ice scraper, a sturdy but soft-on-paint snow brush, and a closed length of just 23 inches make it our choice for cars and compact SUVs.

If you just need a basic handheld scraper, this one is far better than average.

Efficient at clearing ice and sweeping snow, with a 5-foot reach for clearing high roofs and wide hoods, this scraper is best for trucks and SUVs.

The Hopkins SubZero 80037 has been our ice-scraper pick since 2015, but its large size makes it particularly appropriate for trucks and full-size SUVs; if you own a car or compact SUV, you may prefer the smaller OXO Good Grips Extendable Twister Snow Brush, another pick. The 80037 uses a scraping blade and ice-crushing teeth to make quick work of thick or thin ice on windshields and windows, and its plow-like snow broom is among the best we’ve tested—equally adept at shoving snow off body panels and brushing it out from tight spots around the mirrors and wipers. Its many thoughtful design details, including padded grips, a self-locking extension mechanism, and easy-to-use buttons, set it apart from its competitors. Plus, it has proven exceptionally durable: After 10 years of use, our original test model remained in such good shape that we passed it on to another Wirecutter writer for further real-world testing. Just be aware that, at 39 inches folded up and 60 inches fully extended, it takes up a fair amount of trunk space.

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A sharp ice scraper, a sturdy but soft-on-paint snow brush, and a closed length of just 23 inches make it our choice for cars and compact SUVs.

The OXO Good Grips Extendable Twister Snow Brush is like a downsized version of the SubZero 80037. Among the shared features are a sharp scraper blade with crushing teeth for breaking up thick ice; a snow brush that pivots 90 degrees to the handle, so you can push rather than sweep snow and put less strain on your arms; and extremely durable construction. The OXO snow brush is much more compact than the SubZero 80037, however. At just 23 inches with the handle collapsed and 33 inches when extended, it’s plenty long enough for clearing the hood and roof of a car or compact SUV, but it takes up far less space in the trunk. A padded grip adds comfort, and in a nice detail, the bristles of the brush are flagged—deliberately frayed at their tips—so they’re gentler on your vehicle’s finish.

If you just need a basic handheld scraper, this one is far better than average.

It’s easier to clear a car with a long-handled tool, but if you just need a basic, compact scraper, you can’t go wrong with the Hopkins SubZero 16621. An 11-inch tool with an ice scraper, crusher, and cushioned grip, it’s a handheld version of the same great scraper head you find on some of the brand’s other tools.

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In addition to our multiple tests of scrapers, both in the wild and in Ford’s lab environment, Wirecutter’s testers have also personally dealt with decades of rough winters. We’ve scraped ice and swept snow off cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, a fire engine, and a backhoe in the high desert of California, after the heaviest snow in Philadelphia history, and in one of New York City’s worst-ever winters for snowfall (2013–14) as well as 2018’s record stretch of cold weather. Our picks have endured long-term testing in the unforgiving winters of Ithaca, New York, and Keene, New Hampshire.

If you own a vehicle and live anywhere with enough snow or ice that you need winter gear like snow shovels or a snow blower, you’ll likely appreciate a tool that combines a scraper for clearing ice off your car windows with a broom or pusher for sweeping snow off the rest of the vehicle. You may also need one: Some states, including New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, have passed laws requiring drivers to clear snow and ice from cars.

If you already own a basic ice scraper and you’re wondering whether it’s worth upgrading to a longer, more expensive tool, it absolutely is. A tool with a longer handle makes it easier to reach across a windshield without having to use a stool or getting snow all over your coat. You’ll find it easier to drive safely, because the handle and brush make it simpler to clear the entire car. When you use a small scraper, the windshield alone can be so much work that by the time you’re done, you’d probably rather hit the road than do the rest.

If you only get occasional snow, consider repurposing a push broom. Reporters saw folks using brooms in New Orleans to clear that city’s rare early 2025 snowfall. And after 10 years of keeping the big SubZero 80037 in his car, guide author Tim Heffernan found he preferred to keep the trunk unoccupied and simply bring a broom to the parking lot on the rare occasions when New York City got serious snowfall. (Nature likes to play jokes, though, and in early 2025 an uncharacteristic stretch of snow storms, freezing rain, and frigid temperatures hit the New York City area—so he reached for a scraper again.)

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We sought a tool with a wedge-shaped scraper at one end, a snow brush on the other, and a telescoping 4- to 5-foot handle to reach across a vehicle, as well as the following details:

It was 75 °F when we arrived in Detroit—but inside the climate-controlled test room Ford let us borrow, it was -3 °F. And they had taken it easy on us: That particular room can go down to -40 °F and up to 122 °F.

We brought seven scrapers to test; Ford brought an Explorer SUV and a Focus sedan. Using paint sprayers full of water, engineers Dale Snapp and Justin Dorazio laid down thick coats of ice on the cars. We cycled through the scrapers, clearing windshields at various temperatures and ice thicknesses. Six hours and 28 windshields later, we had sore shoulders, numb toes, and a lot of observations.

We found not all ice is identical—clearing the thin, paper-white kind that forms during a hard frost was the toughest, as most scraper blades weren’t sharp enough to get beneath it. Thick ice was easier, as the scraper’s teeth could score deep grooves in the ice, then the blade could catch the grooves’ edges and pop the ice off in sheets. The easiest ice, though, was the loose, crusty, “Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt” layer.

Subsequent tests in the real world over several winters have confirmed what we learned at Ford’s facility—and the research there has helped us evaluate newer scrapers ever since.

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Efficient at clearing ice and sweeping snow, with a 5-foot reach for clearing high roofs and wide hoods, this scraper is best for trucks and SUVs.

The Hopkins SubZero 80037 has the features of an ideal ice scraper: a strong and effective blade, prominent ice-crushing teeth, a sturdy handle with padded grips that locks securely, easy-to-use (and difficult-to-misuse) buttons, and the best brush-broom-plow head we’ve ever tested. It’s plenty big enough to use on trucks and SUVs, yet it collapses small enough to fit in any car.

The 80037’s blade is broad and extremely sturdy. It cleared a windshield of thick, clear ice faster than any other scraper in our tests. The ice-crushing teeth are tall and sharp, and they run from one edge of the 4-inch-wide blade to the other, making it easy to get them into position against the windshield for the broadest possible ice-crushing stroke.

The handle is made of strong aluminum tubing and thick, comfortable neoprene grips that don’t slip in gloved hands. When extended, the handle sections click into place on their own with a confidence-inspiring thunk. Lesser scrapers have looser connections, slippery handles, and sections that don’t lock automatically.

The 80037’s buttons—one to unlock the handle for extension, and a joined pair to adjust the broom head—are standouts. The handle button is a wide, low-profile paddle that’s protected by a bumper. It’s easy to operate with gloved fingers, but unlike designs with an exposed button, it doesn’t unlock accidentally while scraping or sweeping. The broom buttons, one on each side of the broom’s axle, must be pressed simultaneously to adjust the broom’s angle, which is easy to do when you want to but impossible to do by accident.

The combination broom-and-plow head is the best of any we tested, with stiff but non-scratching nylon bristles on one edge, a rubber squeegee on the other that’s rigid enough to push snow off body panels but flexible enough to fit the curves of windows, and a 10-inch-wide extruded-aluminum plow that moves a lot of snow with each pass and stands up to years of work. The bristles sweep snow and ice out of nooks and crannies where other brushes (and foam plows) can’t reach. The head locks into seven positions to optimize the plow angle; competitors’ brooms aren’t as versatile.

Our original 80037 has worked efficiently through 10 New York winters (including a storm that brought 28 inches of snow), and it has proven impressively durable. Despite being stored in a car parked outdoors for that entire time, exposed to summer heat as well as bitter cold, it didn’t show any degradation of the plastic bits or the foam padding on the handle. In fact, it’s recently been passed on to another Wirecutter writer, who likes her own 80037 so much that she wanted a second one—to replace the “crappier” scraper she’s been keeping in the older of her cars.

The 80037’s scraper performs poorly on thin, hard ice or frost, like most scrapers we’ve tried. And though the whole tool collapses to a little over 3 feet, it can’t be fully disassembled, so it takes up significant room in any vehicle.

A sharp ice scraper, a sturdy but soft-on-paint snow brush, and a closed length of just 23 inches make it our choice for cars and compact SUVs.

The OXO Good Grips Extendable Twister Snow Brush puts almost all of the qualities we like about the Hopkins SubZero 80037 into a smaller tool that’s much more convenient for use on (and storage in) a car or compact SUV.

It’s robustly built, with a strong, extendable aluminum handle, sturdy buttons, a sharp scraper blade with tough ice-crushing teeth, and a stiff broom for sweeping snow. Its grip is encased in rubber for secure, cushioned holding with gloved or mittened hands.

With the handle fully collapsed, it’s just 23 inches long—16 inches shorter than the 80037. That makes it a much less obtrusive resident in the trunk of a small vehicle and leaves more room for whatever else you need to put back there. With the handle extended, it’s 33 inches long, so you can reach across the windshield, roof, and hood without having to stretch.

The 8-inch-wide broom head can be turned perpendicular to the handle, which lets you push snow with your body weight. That puts a lot less strain on your wrists and shoulders than sweeping the snow side to side, as you have to do with a brush fixed parallel to the handle. And the broom bristles themselves are thoughtfully made, with flagged tips—deliberately frayed ends—that are less likely to scratch paint than stiff, sharp bristles.

Our first season testing the OXO brush presented it with a variety of challenges. In New York, Tim first got a wet 4-inch snowfall capped by a crusty layer of freezing rain, and later a fine, dry, windblown snow that packed his mirrors and wipers with powder. The OXO brush’s broom head easily cracked the icy crust and plowed away the wet snow underneath, and it swept the powdery stuff out of the nooks and crannies without issue. Senior staff writer Doug Mahoney used his OXO brush after a sizable storm in New Hampshire and says that it felt particularly well built, “sturdier even than the Hopkins 80037.” He used it on a pair of vehicles and preferred it for clearing off the smaller of the two: “I had no problem cleaning off the Subaru Ascent,” he says, “but the mammoth Toyota Sequoia was trickier, especially when it came to the roof.”

The OXO brush does not have a squeegee. The 80037 does, and Doug finds it more efficient than a broom for pushing deep or wet snow. The OXO brush’s broom is, like the rest of the tool, smaller than that of the 80037, which means it takes a few more strokes to clear off a car.

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If you just need a basic handheld scraper, this one is far better than average.

For a basic handheld scraper, you can’t go wrong with the Hopkins SubZero 16621. Essentially an 11-inch version of the same scraper head on some of the brand’s other tools, this combination scraper and crusher is nice to have in a light frost, when a larger tool can feel like overkill, or when you need something small to clear off side windows and mirrors.

Unlike the cheap and tiny handheld scrapers most people have suffered with at some point, the 16621 has a cushioned grip, similar to Hopkins SubZero’s long-handled tools. It feels nice in a gloved hand, has contours in all the right places, and is large enough that you can use a second hand to lay some weight into it for thick, stubborn ice.

It takes up a lot less room than our other picks, but the advantages of a bigger tool are considerable: It’s easier to scrape ice forcefully and stretch across the windshield with a long-handled tool, which means less fatigue and better odds that you’ll keep your sleeves dry.

The Hopkins SubZero Avalanche 14052 is nearly identical to our top pick, the Hopkins SubZero 80037, minus the aluminum plow and with a foam squeegee head instead of a rubber one. If our top pick isn’t available, this is another good choice.

The SubZero 14125 11″ MAXX-Force Scraper is remarkably similar to our current ice scraper pick (also from Hopkins SubZero), but with a slightly more heavy-duty edge that combines both sides of SubZero 16621 with a set of so-called “obliterator” knuckles. We don’t quite agree with the obliteration claim, but it’s a sturdy and reliable scraper.

The Frost Guard Plus Windshield Cover stands out from other similar windshield protectors by using weighted poles instead of weak magnets to attach to your car, which actually prevents it from blowing away. After one particularly harrowing evening of freezing rain, which left our car completely glazed over with a thin sheet of clear ice, the ice-lacquered Frost Guard cover was easy to remove, leaving the windshield underneath completely unscathed. We still needed to use our ice scraper to crack the doors open and clean off the other windows, however, so consider the Frost Guard as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, a standard ice scraper.

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In 2023, Hopkins introduced the Mallory 14135 MAXX-Force Snowbrush. While the heavy-duty ice-scraper end looks impressive, the non-rotating brush means you have to sweep rather than push snow off your car, putting a lot more strain on your wrists and shoulders.

In 2019, we also tried two other foam pushers, the Snow Joe SJBLZD and the True Temper ABTT5212. The Snow Joe can be disassembled for storage, but it’s difficult to do with gloves on, and overall, the tool doesn’t feel as sturdy as our picks. The True Temper pusher is a nice, high-quality item, but it can’t be disassembled, making it tough to store.

The Hopkins SubZero 14039, a previous top pick, is still a good tool. It’s fast, it’s light, and it’s balanced and easy to control. But it has only a broom—not a combination broom-and-plow—which means after a blizzard, you need another tool to sweep the bulk of the snow off your car.

The Hopkins SubZero 14180 Ultimate Crossover Snowbroom has a flexible blade to conform better to the curves of windshields, theoretically improving scraping performance. In our test, though, we didn’t notice much difference in effectiveness. At 48 inches, it’s a bit short for big cars.

The Mallory USA 999CT 35-inch Aluminum Snow Brush is slower than average at scraping frost off windshields, and the ice-scoring teeth are shorter than our top pick from SubZero, making it harder to cut through and remove ice.

The Mallory 518 16-inch SnoWEEvel Snow Brush cleared the window fast with its sharp blade and biting teeth, but its smooth plastic handle is slippery, hard to grip, and too short to clear snow off large vehicles.

We’ve tested multiple no-brush ice scrapers in previous years and rejected most for cumbersome design or ineffective scraping. These included the Iceplane, Ice Master, Snow Joe Edge Ice Scraper with Brass Blade, CJ Industries F101, and Hopkins 13014.

An exception was the Swedish Ice Scraper, a laser-cut wedge of acrylic glass that excels at removing thin, hard frost, with a material just flexible enough to hug the windshield’s curves, clearing ice with each pass. But it’s impractical: It lacks the comfortable handle of the Hopkins SubZero 16621 and has to be ordered from Sweden, which adds costs and delays.

This article was edited by Jen Gushue and Harry Sawyers.

Tim Heffernan

Since I joined Wirecutter in 2015, indoor air and water quality have gone from being somewhat fringe concerns to central worries for many people. First wildfires, then the Flint and Newark lead crises, then COVID-19, and most recently PFAS drove the shift, and it has been a career-defining—and extremely satisfying—challenge to stay on top of the ever-multiplying products used to clean the air and water in homes and to counter the landslides of misinformation and fearmongering that can accompany them.

Since 2021 I’ve developed a third beat covering residential solar and other energy-saving technology and techniques. It’s great fun, not just because it’s an extremely complex topic, but also because the best approach for many people is also the simplest and cheapest: weatherizing their homes. Guiding readers toward solutions that don’t involve buying shiny new toys is the most edifying thing I get to do here.

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