Honda Civic 2001 inside Windscreen frosting up

the problem is not external air but the air already in the car.

replace the pollen filter (if not recently changed) and always use the heater on fresh air intake, use the air con too as it will dry the air that comes in.

mrcheerful

On Vx Omegas it is common for this to happen when the drainage channel under the pollen filter gets blocked and allows a pool of water to form; it might be worth looking for a similar problem.

The message from "BigBrian" contains these words:

Does your car have a Fresh/recirculate selector? If so, make sure it's set to Fresh. Corsas and Astras seem the worst for this - you'll see a car full of people on a cold day and it looks like a sauna 'cos the air's not getting replaced, but just goes round getting damper and damper till the glass is streaming.

Well, extreme cold really.

To a point yet - but also be sure to dry the ventilation and air conditioning system out. To do this one needs a useful long run with the heater on and the air conditioning running for the first half, then shut down for the second.

Having the fan on for demisting is common.

Having the inside freeze either implies that it's extremely cold and moist inside the car, or there's some other reason.

Do you park on the level, or is one side higher than the other (on a kerb say), or on a gradient?

That can help but if the air inside the car has a lot of moisture in it, it'll freeze on contact with a freezing cold windscreen.

Moist air is getting in from somewhere.

Yes. First off, where do you live and is it freezing cold? Do other cars on your street or in your area have the same problem?

Second, do you keep wet clothing in the car? Or anything soaking wet (do you go swimming and leave the towel in the car)? Do you perpetually drive around with the window down? Have you had the Civic's pollen filter replaced?

Running the air conditioning will dry out the interior, eventually, but it'll take many miles and consumes lots of fuel. One thing you can try is to pick up some of the crystal cat litter, which is a desiccant, and use this in the car. I use some plastic jars (ex-peanut butter ones) and fill these with the litter, then puncture the lid, put cloth over and leave them in cup holders in the car for a week or two. It does the trick...

Wow, fast response.. Will pick a new fiilter at Halfords thie evening. I always have the aircon on, the manual says the car will demist better if its always on; always on fresh air intake, though changed it to recirculate mode this morning to see if it would make a difference.

If this works then you are a star, I do the morning school run, when I have to spend 5 minutes clearing the inside of the screen with the kids screaming we going to be late, I feel like my head is going to explode :-) I normally drive off with a half cleared screen, I know thats bad!

Thanks Brian

Never admit what you've just written - you don't know who reads these things...

I will get up ealier in future :-)

Thanks for advice; didn't go to Halfords, I though I would check the last service schedule done last September, =A3500 with 2 new tires and MOT. It states on the check list that air con/pollen filters were changed, on the invoice it states two element filters at =A310 each. I will check to see if these have been replaced at the weekend; they seem to be under the glovebox according to the manual.

Nothing wet in the car, though the boot hasn't been checked, full of the kids bags, there might be something in there.

I only do short runs, two 4 mile trips a day, so perhaps the air isn't been dried out; however the screen freezing up is a new thing, didn't happen last year.

I live in harrow, outer London suburb, my astra only started doing this after it started leaking water into the inside of the car, so nothing unusually cold about my area..

Car is parked on a level drive

If I don't sort it, I'm going to be extremely fed up; the car was a hand me down from my mother, still have to pay for it, though she doesn't want anything for it. I was quite happy with buying old bangers after I got rid of the Astra; bought a LX 1.8 serria for =A3200 notes with six's month MOT, replaced this with a Ford Granada for =A3200 with 12 months MOT and then sold the Serria for =A3180. took the Granada to France and back again, used it for 8 months before the head gasket went, then desperate for a car as I need it for the school run in the morning and was emotionally blackmailed into taking the Honda. Now shelling more on a service than I paid for my previous two cars and the dam thing is doing exactly what the Astra did before I got rid of it :-(

May try the cat litter trick, sounds a good idea, may also try it in the house to remove the condesation on the bedroom windows

Thanks Brian

"BigBrian" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

IME, using the aircon all the time in cold weather always seems to mist up the inside of the car after the journey. A/C is great for drying out the car whilst it's working but for some reason, once you turn it off it creates more moisture than you had to begin with! Don't know exactly why, but I can't help but feel that this is your problem. The solution is to switch it off 10-15 minutes before your journey ends, but leave the heater on to help clear the moisture. In your case, I would suggest turning it off altogether for a few days to see if the situation improves. You may need a cloth to keep the windscreen clear during this time, because the build up of moisture caused by the A/C may make it difficult to keep things clear by normal use of the blower. Once you're warmed up, opening a window slightly helps a lot with the drying out process.

Another good method of preventing a misted up windscreen is to defrost the outside using plenty of lukewarm water rather than de-icer. It does a much better job and the water warms the glass up, thus preventing your breath from condensing on the screen after you set off. I use this method and my screen is never misted up. Obviously, you'll need a squeege or an old wiper blade to clear the water after melting the ice or it will just re-freeze.

HTH

when the aircon stops, all the condensation is still on the evaporator, some systems close a flap so that the moist air is kept away from the interior. Also there is a drain from a tray below the evaporator, these can get blocked, there will then be an excess amount of water lurking about, perhaps this is the problem?

mrcheerful