Ok, it was 1 degree F here this morning and I got into my little Civic, cranked it for a few seconds (about 3) and let it warm up for about 5 minutes while I scraped windows. I hit the rear window defrost and set the interior defrost to high (running the A/C compressor) and after 5 minutes I still had some frost on the outside. I got in expecting it to clear in a few more minutes and headed out. After driving 10 miles and reading the car gage showing that the car is running at the normal warmed temperature, I still had frost inside the car all over the windows. It appears the interior windows had fogged up early and that little moisture had frozen. My question is whether or not this is normal? My Chevy truck and my Honda van would have typically warmed up the interior by then enough to clear the windows. Is it normal for a civic to struggle defrosting/defogging the windows?

Thanks
KR

 

mine does same thing, but i think my fan is not at a 100%

 

My back takes a while to defrost, I think it may be something with my super dark tint.

 

im wondering if mine works at all. It does that too.Lucky it takes an hour to get to work so halfway there the windows finally clear up..

 

I had frost on mine this morning which is rare in my town but I find that the heat/ defrost works hotter with the ac compressor off. Another trick is that (in my '00 civics case) even when you turn on the defrost the far left and right front vents are still on. I turn turn the valves off to give all fan pressure to the windshield... it take around 30 seconds to a minute pending how bad your frosty winshield is. Oh and for those of you who dont know, use cold water to work off the frost NOT hot, you could crack your windshield.

 

was the air coming out of the vents warm?

 

Yeah the air was as warm as the two front, side vents but with the wide vent at the defrost diffusing the flow over the windshield it did not feel like it was coming out very fast. From what I have read here and heard from others the temperature this morning was a little more than what the little Civic could clear in the time allotted (5 minute warm up and 15 minute drive). My Honda Odyssy and Chevy Pickup both force flow much more air (and cleared their frost in about 10 minutes) but I would expect they have higher capacity blowers and larger engines produce a bit more heat... This afternoon it seemed to do better.

I do not suspect the system is struggling or defficient but rather it did the best it could in the situation it was in. My soultion is to get it back into the garage at night (ha ha)

Thanks,
KR