What’s A Car Windshield Heater?
The purpose of a heated front windshield is to help melt ice or snow during the winter season. If you see any curvy wires across the windshield (pretty thin), especially near the base of the wipers, then your windshield is heated. The same applies for your rear windshield.
Another very simple and straightforward way to figure out if you have a car windshield heater is to check your dashboard for a certain button (see image above). It would correspond to a front or rear windshield heater, but its actual design and placement can vary depending on the make and model of your car. It could have just the pictograms, the writing, or a combination of both.
How Does It Function?
If you look at the bottom of your front windshield, just around your wipers, you’ll see the place from where the small wires start. They then go across the entire windshield, much the same like how your rear windshield is also heated.
Still, even if you do have a front windshield heating button in your dashboard, but see no wires, do not worry. Some manufacturers use this technology in such a way that the tungsten wires are actually hidden. Nevertheless, same as they work in lightbulbs, these wires head up the surface of your windshield.
It’s not a huge temperature increase of course, and it doesn’t need to be either. Just enough to melt ice or snow, which can be as low as 33.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or anything above the freezing point of water. So, if the glass isn’t hot or even warm to the touch, it doesn’t mean the heaters aren’t working.
You can safely refrain from using an ice scraper, which has a good change to damage the glass, or splashing it with hot water, which will shatter it because of the sudden and extreme temperature change.
Does It Have Any Other Uses?
Actually, yes! While the main reason for having a car windshield heater is to help defrost your auto glass during the winter season, it’s also of great help against condensation. Basically, if there’s a noticeable difference in temperature between the outside and inside of your car, but neither are at freezing point, your windshield can become foggy.
Turning on your wipers to deal with this can sound like a good idea, at first. However, it can just as well spread all of that humimidy around, further impeding your visibility of the road by creating streaks
In the absence of a heated front windshield, you’d have to rely on your AC for defrosting and to account for condensation, which ultimately costs you gas money. How? Well, your AC is powered by a component which in itself depends on the engine, and the engine consumes fuel. An AC system, on average, lowers your vehicle’s efficiency by approximately 3 miles per gallon.
Replacement Of A Heated Front Windshield
If your windshield is damaged in the form of a crack or chip, among other negative aspects, it can also cause the heating grid to stop functioning due to a loss of electrical contact. At ProLite Auto Glass, we can handle any sort of windshield repair or windshield replacement, for $0 Out-of-Pocket cost with full coverage insurance, and free mobile service!
Just tell our friendly customer care team that you have a heated windshield when you give us a call at (480) 525-6554, so that our expert technicians know what glass is required. Not only does it need to have the wiring, but the system also usually leads into your vehicle, so they’ll have to first disconnect it from the broken windshield. No worries though, as installs usually take less than 30 minutes!
