Best car heater....to clear windscreen

ford with heated front screen, or buy a webasto pre heating kit for your car: then you can set the timer and come out to a fully warmed up and ready to go car, either a self contained unit or one that plugs into the mains. one of the advantages to the webasto option is there is less engine wear and more fuel economy due to the warmed up engine.

In message , nickc writes

My Mondeo MK 3 (Zetec) has a magic button on the heating control panel which switches the air conditioning on, the fan to maximum, and the heat (if any is available) to maximum.

It clears the screen within seconds, even from cold. The heated windscreen also does the same job pretty quickly.

There are perhaps other models which have similar features... :)

Fords definitely win here with the heated windscreen, the one thing we Ford drivers can be smug about. Mine automatically switches on if the temp is 4C or lower on start up.

Z

+AD4- My Astra 1.7cdti '04 takes over about 2 miles to get any real +AD4- heat.......and 8 (?) miles to clear the screen. +AD4- My Mrs Skoda Fabia 1.4 tdi '03 about the same. +AD4- +AD4- My old Citroen XZ 1.9d was better than either the newer cars for heat / +AD4- screen clear . +AD4- +AD4- I seem to remember test driving a Daihatsu years ago and being surprised +AD4- how quick the heater came up......pretty sure it was from cold. +AD4- +AD4- Any thoughts?

It's possible to buy small 12v screen demisters, a bit like hairdryers, to clear kitcar windscreens (with no heater). Available from kit car bits suppliers, dunno whether they're any good though :)

Like this+ADs-

nickc expressed precisely :

Mine is up to temperature before I get to the local motorway junction about a mile away. Amazingly - it is producing some heat before I even get it out of the end of the drive, but it's most useful feature is the front screen electric heater combined with it's separate ability to just set it with a single control to clear the screen. The latter turns the a/c on and the blower.

Saabs, Volvos, Fords. Some Mercedes.

My Audi isn't bad, but does take 1/2 mile or so before it's toasty warm inside.

Your heater is clearly faulty then. If it's a petrol engined car you need it checking. If you have air conditioning it clears within a few minutes providing you follow the instructions in the handbook about which settings to put everything on. From memory you switch the aircon ON, set it to full temperature, put the selector to WINDSCREEN and put the fan speed on 4 or FULL. The aircon does NOT work on the windscreen outlets unless you do this. If it doesn't clear doing that then your heater matrix is blocked or the car thermostat is staying open. The thermostat has no effect on the heater, but will not circulate water around the full cooling system until the appropriate temperature is reached. In the cold the thermostat will keep the water circulating around the engine and this causes heat to be generated faster. The heater matrix can be blocked if the correct coolant has not been used at the correct intervals, bits of corrosion form and gather in the tubing inside the matrix which is of very small diameter. Check the colour of your coolant, it should be a red/pink colour, anything else and it is unsuitable! You can get small ceramic heaters that plug in to the cigarette lighter socket, but they are only good for cracking the windscreen as they provide instant heat and not gradual - so put the glass under extreme stress.

For the outside of your car, forget using RAIN-X products, they claim to provide protection against snow and ice forming. Do they hell, the products are next to useless and have completely false claims. The same for ASDA De-Icer, what a waste of time that is - it freezes. I was given a refund after demonstrating how useless it was in the ASDA car park a few days ago.

Pete M pretended :

They shut the compressor down, when the temperature of the heat exchanger falls below 4 deg to make sure they do not build up ice. Bypass the sensor and they can be blocked up solidly with ice. On recirculate, with the air from the cabin passing over the heat exchanger matrix, the cabin air will usually be warmer than the 4 degrees cut off.

Cant beat the RR, set it up to either come on timed, or press a button on the remote :)

------8 It's possible to buy small 12v screen demisters, a bit like hairdryers,

I have a pair of 12V hair-dryers on my kit-car, they are pretty much useless for demisting in an open top car and are only there to meet SVA regulations. They may be better in an enclosed space though, but I can't imagine how they could practically be used to dry any amount of hair.

My tip for defrosting an icy windscreen is to use _lukewarm_ salty water. This melts the ice and warms the screen enough to reduce misting. The salt prevents it freezing on the screen and on the ground where it eventually drains. There's the risk that if the water's too hot, the thermal shock will crack the screen.

-- Rich

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+ACI-Richard Crewe+ACI- +ADw-richardSOCKS.crewe+AEA-sniff-theTROUSERS.demon.co.uk+AD4- wrote in message news:wE91n.4150+ACQAJQ-54.3607+AEA-newsfe22.ams2...

+AD4-

+AD4- My tip for defrosting an icy windscreen is to use +AF8-lukewarm+AF8- salty +AD4- water. This melts the ice and warms the screen enough to reduce misting. +AD4- The salt prevents it freezing on the screen and on the ground where it +AD4- eventually drains. There's the risk that if the water's too hot, the +AD4- thermal shock will crack the screen. +AD4-

That's what I use, and I've never heard of anyone who cracked a screen this way. There will always be someone who pours a kettle of boiling water onto a screen and gets all they deserve. I don't bother with the salt, but someone suggested a drop of dishwasher rinse aid can be a good idea.

D A Stocks

It's a pretty minor risk though or driving through puddles in the summer would shatter your windscreen.

My father's Audi has no heated screen but has some sort of supplementary heating device factory fitted.

Sorry Harry...... your what?........Citroen Astra Daihatsu?

Thanks to all regarding defrosting. But I am really trying to find out about heating & demisting of posters cars.

Cheers

Nick

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the quickest demisting screen vehicle will be a Ford with a heated screen.

The newer the vehicle the quicker it will defrost, petrol cars will defrost (by heater) faster than diesels. Toyota Prius in regular use defrosts very fast due to the thermos flask it keeps hot water in. Wife's petrol Lexus starts effective demisting within half a mile.

"Mrcheerful" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Not necessarily.

FWIW, the Saab is quick, but you'd expect that.

the amount of water in the heads of newer engines has been reduced to improve the warm up time of the engine so that emissions are reduced, so 'in general' the newer the vehicle the quicker the heater gets hot.

Oh yes, some diesels have heater plugs (three or four) in the water jacket to get the engine up to temp. quicker, so the op might be able to add those to his (diesel) vehicles.

"Mrcheerful" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

OTOH, greater efficiency - especially with common-rail diesels - reduces the amount of heat getting to the coolant, which is why a lot of common- rail diesels have auxiliary fuel-burning heaters for the cabin.