XR5 De Misting Windscreen - Weak

[Skid Marx]

Here in Perth (as in many other Aussie cities) we've had cold mornings and my XR5 is parked outside without cover. This means the windscreen is dead cold and so naturally condenses the moisture in my breath.

On every other car, I've found setting the air-con to it's lowest temp setting, selecting NON-recirculating air, selecting the windscreen option for the blower outlets and turning the fan up full is the quickest way to get rid of this. But on my LV XR5 Focus, it has little effect. In fact I think the air-con system (compressor, refrigerant, etc) simply won't switch in when it's under about 8 degrees ambient temp outside so it's probably futile.

I've tried windows down but the screen remains misted. The manual (the book, not the gearbox - yuk yuk) says to turn the air-con up the full heat. Well, that's OK but sitting there for 5 minutes waiting for it to happen just seems like bad design. My old car - 04 Subaru Impreza RS never had this problem - but made up for it with lots of other problems!

Any ideas around this? I have not tried any of the anti-fogging solutions so far as I had a bad experience with Rain-X about 20 years ago. It worked, but my windscreen had shocking glare problems with the sun low in the sky.

[entheos]

Air con and HEAT and setting 4, I've never got it on recirc....even when it's cold....even when it not cold ambient temps.....it's always worked fastest for me. you should be letting the car warm up a little before you drive, so by the time it's gotten to drop rev's below 1000....(sometimes I wait a little longer even....thankfully I'm off the street, but still not under cover....) it should be working....

I've found the XR5 to have a fantastic heating system works very quickly even in the temps we've had the last 2 days in syd but the cooling sucks..

[sumpPUMP]

Originally Posted by entheos

Air con and HEAT and setting 4, I've never got it on recirc....even when it's cold....even when it not cold ambient temps.....it's always worked fastest for me.

thats exactly what i do groomy! works a treat after few mins, altho rear demister is quite a bit slower...

[XR5-Boy]

In Melbourne last week i walked outside and it was 2 degrees. Car was frozen over. As soon as i started it, cranked the heat up and selected the front window blowers. I was ready to go in about a minute or so.

However, the redemister IS slow compared to my old Cougar (that would be done in 30 secs!)

[leakey]

Yep, same for me too. I even had the snow flake frost warning light come on the dash the other day! I had to look it up in the book. LCD read 1 degrees.

Out of interest, our UK brothers have a front windscreen demister switch, as well as the rear. How does that work? Is it also copper tracks on the screen?.

[Skid Marx]

Originally Posted by XR5-Boy

In Melbourne last week i walked outside and it was 2 degrees. Car was frozen over. As soon as i started it, cranked the heat up and selected the front window blowers. I was ready to go in about a minute or so.

That's interesting. Even turning my car so the front windscreen directly faces the sun (lovely clear sky this morning but still freezing), it still took at least 4 minutes before those two hand-sized clear patches on the window had expanded large enough to make driving reasonably safe. Perhaps this is just a weak point of an otherwise great little car.

[Skid Marx]

Originally Posted by leakey

Out of interest, our UK brothers have a front windscreen demister switch, as well as the rear. How does that work? Is it also copper tracks on the screen?.

I know there is such a substance as 'electrically conductive glass' - which in fact is a transparent coating applied to glass which conducts a current and thus heats slightly. We have used such devices where I work under microscopes where you have to allow light to pass through small glass dishes which have to remain warm. It's pretty weak though. Maybe they use an electrically heated air source rather than having to wait until the motor warms up.

[BlackLS]

Maybe for the mirrors