The mornings are frosty up here, and the car is covered inside and out with frost that obscures the windows. It's easy enough (tho not fun, due to the chill) to scrape off the frost from the windshield, but the inside of the windshield is harder to clear because it seems to require running the engine for a few minutes in order to heat up the interior. I'm guessing that the interior moisture comes from my own breathing as I drive home in the evenings.
Is there any solution to this problem that doesn't require lengthy and gas-guzzling use of the engine? Maybe a thing you plug into the car? I don't have a garage, but I do have a shed that I could make some use of. Is there some tarp that I should cover the car with? Should I put some dehumidifying agent in the car (like the carbon pellets we used to have in our basement) that could reduce the interior moisture?
Just like you said, the air inside the car has the same as or higher amounts of moisture than the environmental air. As the air outside the car drops, the humidity (dew point) does as well, and the air inside the car lowers in temperature but the dew point stays the same. So you get frost on the inside/outside of the car.
What you can do is crack one of the windows open overnight if that is possible, that should relieve the frost inside. Or park under a tree and you may not get any frost.
are you using the defroster with the A/C condenser running? this dehumidifies the interior. if you make a habit of running the defroster one or two clicks off center, the A/C condenser doesn't run and could contribute to abnormally-high levels of moisture in the cabin, which will in turn cause interior frosting as it condenses.
These are described in a European accessory brochure:
Quote:
Stationary heater basic kit:
(Not shown). Gives you the option of warming up the interior before you get into the car with pleasantly warm seats and clear windows. As well as this, the stationary heater increases the life of the engine by avoiding cold starts.
2 Stationary heater digital timer: Guarantees a warm welcome. The digital timer makes it child’s play to pre-programme the starting time of the stationary heater – another good reason to look forward to getting into your smart fortwo
No idea of part numbers but maybe Paul at Round Rock could run them down for you.
rawlusa has the key, dehumidify the interior of your car to get rid of the moisture and there will be no condensation or ice on the interior windows. Cover the car with a California Pop Top or a full car cover and there will be no ice on the outside windows. The cover will also protect from snow accumulation overnight. Just shake it off before storing it in the cargo hatch in the tailgate.
the makers of Rain-X also make a product called Fog-X which is an anti-fog/anti-condensate treatment - i hesitate to recommend it, however, as the film applied to create this anti-fog quality can require alot of attention/maintenance and the interior windows will never be really *clean* if they have this film.
it works well on bathroom mirrors however.
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