About a week after I bought the car in May I took it aftermarket for window tinting. Now (5 months later) that its getting cool and damp in the mornings I notice the rear defroster doesn't seem to be working. It appears that the S-Balls who did the tinting cracked the male/female electrical connection which powers the grid. That's right...The male dingus was cracked off and jammed in the female whatsis rendering both connectors unuseable. The beauty is that they didn't tell a sole and stuck it all back together with Crazy Glue!!!! The time of year was perfect because I had little or no use for it until recently. I had an electrician friend of mine do a wire & solder job bypassing the damaged parts...Works OK but I'll be surprised if it lasts. True to dealer form all they can suggest is replacing the window on my insurance dime and probably having to go through the idiot charade of actually breaking the window to assure the coverage, and that would only take care of half the connection!!! Does anyone have any idea where these electrical parts can be obtained?? Thanks in advance Jon H. Pls. post and EMail
'06 WRX rear Defroster Niighhtmare
Oct 09, 2006
3 Replies
I would think body shops deal with this regularly. I have no idea if the parts might be available from the dealer, but an online source I've used is
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. Also, I wonder if those parts have changed much recently, a junkyard might have them.
Carl
What's the problem with the soldered connection? IMO, as long as the current can flow through it, and it doesn't short out anywhere... it's good. If you want, you can probably get a connector of some sort at Radio Shack and have your friend hook that up.
Like I said, if it works, and doesn't start stuff on fire, just leave it... it's not worth the trouble replacing the rear window over.
J> About a week after I bought the car in May I took it aftermarket for
I had the same problem years back on my 1995 Honda Accord when I had the windows tinted by Ziebart. The back window defroster didn't work after their tint job. I had to buy a new rear window, and then take them to small claims court. I won the case and Ziebart had to reimburse me for the cost of a new rear window and tint. Total bill came to over $500.00 which they had to pay. About 6 months later, they went out of business because of numerous consumer complaints.
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