Jim Grant's Tech Tips
'00 Honda Civic, Frosting Windows
Q:
I
own a 00 Honda Civic. One particularly cold night, the defroster
could not work fast enough. While I was driving with the defroster on,
the car fogged up terribly. It was so bad, that I let it run after I arrived
home because I was heading back out within minutes and I wanted the windows
clear. When I came out, the fog was gone but the windows moist (condensation).
I drove to the gym and when I came out 45 minutes later - there was frost
on the inside of the windows. It was so dense, it required scraping! I've
never had to scrape the inside of my car before. What would cause these
problems? The car has only 27k miles.
A:
Check
the heater controls to see if you have the recirculate mode selected.
The heating and ventilation systems on most vehicles have two air modes,
fresh air and recirculated air. The fresh air mode allows the ventilation
system to pull in outside air to be heated or cooled for the passenger
compartment. The recirculate mode does what the name indicates, cabin/inside
air is used and to heat or cool. There would be no problem with that if
you didnt breathe. We humans expel a lot of moisture and inside
a vehicle this moisture turns into condensation. Condensation just loves
to collect on cold glass surfaces. During winter operation it is best
to induce outside air to the ventilation system to aid purging moisture
from the passenger compartment. As the weather warms thats a different
story for another time.
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