How to deal with foggy windshield?
The windshield is foggy, due to steam, cold mist or simply due to the temperature difference between inside and outside the car when the weather is humid or cold... what is the most effective way to handle it?
According to the experience of drivers, there are many ways to fix the problem of foggy windshield, including... using a towel to wipe it. However, this situation has been anticipated from the production stage, by equipping supporting features that if not noticed, many people may waste and not use.
1. Glass drying feature
- Most new car models today are equipped with this feature for both the windshield and rearview mirror; many luxury cars have an additional rearview mirror heating system.
- The front/rear windshield heating system button is usually located on the center console, near the air conditioner, with a separate symbol (illustrated below) and when activated, an indicator light will turn on (if the indicator light does not light up, the system is not working properly).
Front and rear windshield heating button symbols
In car models with automatic air conditioning systems, these features will usually automatically turn off after a certain period of time (10-15 minutes). If not, remember to turn them off when the fogging of the windshield has stopped, to avoid overloading the electrical system, optimizing fuel and air conditioning systems.
2. Air conditioning
- The first thing to note is that you should not use hot air conditioning to treat the steam on the glass, because the condensation on the windshield is due to the temperature difference between inside the car and the environment. Use cold air conditioning and a reasonable air flow mode.
- Select the wind mode to blow air onto the windshield (the wind mode control button is located on the car's air conditioning system), use the appropriate wind level and temperature, because if it is too cold, the glass will condense on the outside.
The air conditioning system vent control positions to dry the windshield. Note that using the air conditioning with low temperature (cold) will bring higher dehumidification capacity than the hot air option.
3. Balance the temperature inside and outside the car
- Open the window about 10-15cm: A simple and fuel-saving way to help balance the temperature inside/outside the car, avoiding condensation. However, if driving in the rain, this is clearly not an optimal choice.
- Turn on the fan and set it to outside air intake mode. This is also a way to balance the temperature inside/outside the car, avoiding condensation on the glass. However, the weakness of this method is that it is not very effective and if there is already condensation on the windshield or rear window, then it is obviously too late to take in outside air.
- In addition, you can also choose to apply some materials to the inside of the windshield to prevent steam from sticking, such as shaving foam, shampoo, tobacco... but of course this must be done when the windshield is dry, not when it is already steamed.
