When I went out to the car last night I could see that the windscreen was frosted up, and I inwardly berated myself for not putting my frost cover on when I parked up in the morning.

I opened up the car, started the engine, got out the scraper and set to work - only to find that the frost was almost entirely on the inside of the screen. It was quite thick in places, too. The scraper would hardly touch it because of the concave curvature of the inside of the screen :( . So I had to sit and wait for the blower to defrost it enough to wipe it clear with a cloth - and it was quite a long wait given that I have a diesel. :S

I kept the blower on full all the way home, with windows open a few inches to try to help disperse any residual dampness. When I got home I closed the windows and wiped the screen dry.

This morning it was frosted up on the inside once more so I had to go through the same rigmarole again. This time I used a shammy sponge to get the screen as dry as possible. I'll have to see what it's like when I go out this evening.

What I don't understand is where the moisture came from to create all that frost. There was no rain yesterday, and as far as I know there is no dampness in the cabin. Do I need to close the ventilation outlets, or maybe even set it to recirculated air mode, to stop moist air getting in while it's parked up? I dearly hope I haven't got a leak, or a water trap somewhere...

Have you turned off your A/C if so turn it back on.

Regards,

TP

Have you turned off your A/C if so turn it back on.

Regards,

TP

I always thought that Aircon/dehumidifying cease to work below 5 degC (outside air temp).

In answer to the OP's question as to why ........

............... unusual weather conditions. i.e. very wet/humid immediately followed by clear frost.

Is the 'recirculation' button on your aircon/heating set to 'fresh' or 'recirc' - It needs to be set on 'fresh' to get a throughput of air.

Other suggestion; check to see if you are getting water into the car anywhere; footwells perhaps.

Instant reaction -check the footwells, and the floor of the boot area. It sounds suspiciously like some form of water ingress lying unnoticed somewhere. Grrrr. Ad good luck.

Do you have a sunroof, as there were leaky problems there......

In answer to the OP's question as to why ........

............... unusual weather conditions. i.e. very wet/humid immediately followed by clear frost.

We had a sprinkling of snow yesterday morning as I was setting out, but other than that it's been dry here for several days. And generally cold, too (though not below freezing until yesterday) so not much opportunity for it to be humid.

Is the 'recirculation' button on your aircon/heating set to 'fresh' or 'recirc' - It needs to be set on 'fresh' to get a throughput of air.

It's set to 'fresh' 99.9% of the time (it mostly only gets set to 'recirc' when the car does it itself for a few seconds after using the windscreen washers).

Other suggestion; check to see if you are getting water into the car anywhere; footwells perhaps.

I'm really hoping it's not that, but I guess I'll have to check. :(

Instant reaction -check the footwells, and the floor of the boot area. It sounds suspiciously like some form of water ingress lying unnoticed somewhere. Grrrr. Ad good luck.

Do you have a sunroof, as there were leaky problems there......

And breathing doesn't help

Also, there's a lot of moisture in the air anyway, so i guess thats all it takes

Had it with every car i've ever owned i think

We had a sprinkling of snow yesterday morning as I was setting out, but other than that it's been dry here for several days. And generally cold, too (though not below freezing until yesterday) so not much opportunity for it to be humid.

OK; its been piddling down with rain the last 24 hours in the South East. Yuk.

It's set to 'fresh' 99.9% of the time (it mostly only gets set to 'recirc' when the car does it itself for a few seconds after using the windscreen washers).

I'm really hoping it's not that, but I guess I'll have to check. :(

Good luck; fingers crossed for you.

I always thought that Aircon/dehumidifying cease to work below 5 degC (outside air temp).

In answer to the OP's question as to why ........

............... unusual weather conditions. i.e. very wet/humid immediately followed by clear frost.

Is the 'recirculation' button on your aircon/heating set to 'fresh' or 'recirc' - It needs to be set on 'fresh' to get a throughput of air.

Other suggestion; check to see if you are getting water into the car anywhere; footwells perhaps.

Thanks for the update,

new one on me; used to advise using the A/C for demisting.

Just checked the handbook and it states:

The cooling operates only if the following conditions are met:

 engine running,

 outside temperature above approx. +2°C,

 switched on.

Leave our A/C on all the time and always have done with the climatronic systems and get little condensation or freezing inside unless it's very cold. With the previous Golf turning the A/C off produced a warning light in the climatronic, with the Skoda's it's the other way round

Regards,

TP

Edited 7 January, 201115 yr by The Plumber

What I don't understand is where the moisture came from to create all that frost. There was no rain yesterday, and as far as I know there is no dampness in the cabin. Do I need to close the ventilation outlets, or maybe even set it to recirculated air mode, to stop moist air getting in while it's parked up? I dearly hope I haven't got a leak, or a water trap somewhere...

Cause: heavy breathing ( ) inside the car when it is warm inside and you are too. Air can hold much more moisture when warm than when cold, so as the temperature drops overnight, the moisture condenses (and freezes) on the coldest surface - the winscreen.

A/C won't work at these cold temperatures, but make sure you set the heating system to flow-through, not re-circulate.

Vignet: Cold, snowy winter car park in Chicago loooong time ago. I back out of my slot and go a little too far and bump a car in the other row. Noticed there was lights on the car, so went over to apologize and tell them "no damage". As i approach, two heads appear above the back seat - 1 M, 1 F - and the back window opens slightly - "OK, just b*gg*r off". Windows were frosted over on the inside.

Edited 7 January, 201115 yr by Agerbundsen

Cause: heavy breathing ( )

Vignet: Cold, snowy winter car park in Chicago loooong time ago. I back out of my slot and go a little too far and bump a car in the other row. Noticed there was lights on the car, so went over to apologize and tell them "no damage". As i approach, two heads appear above the back seat - 1 M, 1 F - and the back window opens slightly - "OK, just b*gg*r off". Windows were frosted over on the inside.

L O L

Ahhhh..... those were the days

Apart from the USA tale of porno (!!!!) the moisture on your breath is highly unlikely to reach the levels that you describe.

What might contribute, if there are no obvious leaks, is snow on your wellies as you get in and out of the car regularly during bad weather. That water has to be absorbed somewhere.

You havent got bottled water in your glove-box which might have spilled?

(My Megane did this once - and was traced to a water ingress that filled the door pocket to about an inch deep. Where from? No idea and never recurred. Ruined a chequebook and some CD inserts.)

Being in rural Northumberland we have had similar temperatures and conditions to those in Edinburgh so we are comparable. My Yeti is parked outside and has frequently had thick frosts on the outside of the windscreen. The inside has always been fine though which tends to lead to a possible issue. My wife's Citroen C3 did have slight freezing on the inside at one point during "the great freeze" but that has a large panoramic windscreen and being a Citroen it is not brilliantly fitted and so the chances of gaps and water getting in are quite possible. I would not expect that on the Yeti.

The Climatronic has not cleared dampness on the inside of the windscreen as quickly as systems on other cars that I have had and so it is interesting to hear that it does not work below a certain temperature. I did have an excess of internal mist which refused to evaporate a week or so ago and so I cleaned that using a window cleaner. Since then the inside has been much better. It may be worth trying that to clear the inside completely so that you are starting from scratch. A process of elimination.

Had a similar problem during the cold snap but it was usually the day after a shopping trip or similar when my eldest son stayed in the car and it misted up so I put it down to that, also thinking about it there always seemed to be a puddle on the drivers rubber mat from the snow melting off my boots.

Well, I checked the cabin again earlier this afternoon and there is no obvious dampness in the footwells (phew). I don't have a sunroof. I'll have to wait and see if it does it again this evening.

The floor mats (£6.99 from Lidl - at that price I don't mind cutting them to fit!) did get a bit damp from boots when the deep snow was about but that's been gone for a week now at least. I do have a bottle of water in the door pocket but I checked that this morning and it looked fine.

I used to carry a 1l Sigg aluminium bottle full of water in the boot of my Impreza to top up the screenwash reservoir (a "get me to the next garage" measure, having previously experienced loss of screenwash in places where the roads were filthy and there was no clean water readily available). On returning from a trip up north last winter I found that the water in the bottle had frozen, bursting the bottom out of the bottle, and then melted. Fortunately the bottle was inside a plastic toolbox which contained the deluge so nothing much got damaged, but it did at least remind me what can happen to water left in cars overnight when it's frosty.

This used to be a problem for me when working in farm practice.

My wellies would be washed and disinfected numerous times every day and the container in which they sat inevitably gathered some moisture, often substantial, during the working day. That, and the waterproof calving overall, which is a head to toe tarpaulin-like garment that wraps right around the body and which is also washed thoroughly but not dried, and stored in a bundled up heap in a container.

Both these would hold sufficient to cause mist up, and occasional freeze up, and the sensible precaution was to remove them from the vehicle overnight and stand them by the AGA (made them nice and toasty to put on if called out!).

My money in your case is still on the effluent from your shoes/wellies soaking into your nice economical Lidl mats, especially if you also had passengers, too.

I think you definately have a leak somewhere... I had one in my Audi where the pressure relief vents behind the rear bumper failed (the let the air out when you close a door) and let water into the boot. The car used to steam up like crazy inside. Fixed the vents and no more fog inside.

It's a common and well documented problem on the Octavia, including mine.

I found it was worse when the wife was driving, as she does short journey's and keeps the internal temperature quite low.

I must have thin skin as I tend to have the Climatronic up at around 28 so after a good run it gets nice and toasty inside.

If the cabin never gets warm you'll struggle to get rid of the moisture inside the car.

Take it for a good run, crank up the heat and crack open a window to let the warm moist air out

ive had this quite a few times over the winter so far.....solid ice inside aint clever'...takes ages to defrost enough to safely see....never had this happen in other cars even cheap ones many mnay moons ago, my footwells are bone dry too..so hard to understand as to why????

It was the condensation on the inside of the windscreen on my Yeti that led me to discover the driver's footwell was saturated (L/H drive- for what it's worth). I reckon that would have been frost, had it been cold enough.

I was getting the inside frozen windsreen too. This was due to bringing in snow of my boots which melted on the rubber floormats, as some days I was doing 7 or more journeys (kids , dogs etc). The snow's melted away for now here, though there is still a fair bit in Northumberland. I'm hoping we get some more soon.

Had this on my Roomster frequently in wet weather. Leaking windscreen was replaced and car mats dried out but condensation has always been a problem. Bought a dehumidifier from Lidl, the type that you put "magic crystals" in and that cured it. Just have to rmember to empty the tray from tiem to time!

Fred

I'm pretty sure that sometimes when I put the blower on the screen first thing it actually puts more mist there to start with - before starting to clear it again; and yes I get frost on the inside as well.

I don't think it's as always as simple as wet boots or whatever though, it never seems as consistent as that for me.

One thing I did realise today was that since driving my first vehicle with AC (ie the Yeti) I drive with the window open far less often than I used to and therefore getting a really good blast of fresh air through is a rarity.

I have never worked out why, but if I park the car overnight having used the A/C on a cold wet day, the windows are either already steamed up next morning, or steam up as soon as I start her up and the fan kicks in. I then need to turn on the A/C to clear the screen. However, if I've not used the A/C the previous day, then the windows are fine next morning. Incidentally, this is not unique to the Yeti, I've noticed these circumstances on previous cars I've owned with A/C.

So, at this time of year, I rarely use the A/C, just using the fan to keep windows clear - in fact I make a point of turning A/C off even when the system automatically turns it on if you select screen demist or auto temp. It saves petrol (ok, only a little) and except in exceptionally cool wet conditions, the windows are fine, just like they used to be before the days of Air Con on cars.

If you have carpet mats, there can be an amazing amount of water retained in them that is not immediately obvious, just off your shoes. Rubber mats are far better as although you can see the water, if you have the Skoda type with a ridge around the edge, the water wont spill onto your carpets and usually evaporates more quickly as you drive along.

Another tip, is to ensure that you dont block the extractor vents in the boot, though on the Yeti it's actually quite difficult to do so!

One thing that definitely helps, is to clean the inside of the screen regularly. Like many modern cars, the glass does develop a bloom on the inside, presumably from the plastics used inside the air ventillation trunking, and this does encourage the screen to steam up if not cleaned off regularly. If you are a smoker, then all the more reason for cleaning the inside of the screen! Or even better, don't smoke!!!

Edited 9 January, 201115 yr by speedsport

I have never worked out why, but if I park the car overnight having used the A/C on a cold wet day, the windows are either already steamed up next morning, or steam up as soon as I start her up and the fan kicks in. I then need to turn on the A/C to clear the screen. However, if I've not used the A/C the previous day, then the windows are fine next morning. Incidentally, this is not unique to the Yeti, I've noticed these circumstances on previous cars I've owned with A/C.

Simple,

If the A/C runs at low temperatures, the moisture freezes on the cooling coil. When you then start and use the ventilatin system, this moisture is blown onto the inside of the windscreen, where it condenses ans freezes.

Same thing happens in aircraft, when the A/C first comes on - you get fog coming out of the cabin air nozzles for a short while.