Good morning all, So it is the first frosty morning here in the soft south. Anyone know what might be involved in acquiring a heated windscreen for my otherwise perfectly satisfactory 140 elegance? 6 minutes running to de-ice without scraping isn't too bad but a heated screen would make a daily difference to my life.

I am a master technician for the automotive glazing side of things. In response to your question. Retro fitting would be very straight forward but you have to locate a heated screen which would be a problem! If it was never an option with skoda then you would have to get a screen custom made. There is a company by Coventry that make heated screens to order. But if they have never made one for a yeti then the cost of making the first would be immense

I guess its down to the differences between the models equipped with one and the ones that arent. Is the loom the same? Id imagine there would be power needed somewhere up the a pillars for the heated one? Could be interesting. Heated front screens are great in this weather.

Are any skodas available with this option?

Yes, it's a factory fitted option.

So, we know there is a Yeti heated screen available, and that -as I'd hoped- fitting is straight forward. I would be surprised if there isn't a loom attachment at least as a separate loom seems an unlikely set up for mass production.

So does anyone have any clue as to how the wiring may be achieved?

I had the heated screen changed on my Yeti after a stone chip. Talking to the Autoglass fitter he said the cost of the screen alone was well over £300.

I think the power supply is somewhere behind the interior mirror unit.

Andy

Just keep in mind you will have to add a switch somewhere for this... The factory fitted screen's switch lives on the HVAC control panel (above the fan speed). So to have a heated screen with the correct button will mean changing the HVAC control too I suspect.... and THAT won't be cheap. BUT if you have a spare button below the HVAC controls, next to your ASR or Off road button, I'm sure it won't be that difficult to wire it there instead.

the cost of the screen alone was well over £300.

For less than a fiver (in fact I think they're less than £2) you can get a windscreen frost guard cover from Sainsburys which is remarkably effective at stopping ice forming. It worked very well on my Yeti last winter when overnight temps were double figures below freezing. The fabric looks rather flimsy but it's perfectly strong enough. I did manage to tear off one of the plastic rods that you shut inside the door to keep the thing in place, but that was only because the door froze shut (this was in the days before I found out about Gummi Pflege ) and I had to get it off the car somehow so brute force was deployed... At <£2 for a whole new cover, I wasn't particularly upset!

Edited 23 November, 201114 yr by ejstubbs

I'm by no means against your practical fix and a £2 price is certainly not much to invest but demisting the screen when setting off on a cold day is also part of the problem.

This is my first diesel and I have always understood that oil burners are slower to warm up after starting.

I don't approve of the "wipe a porthole and press on" solution and running the engine until there is enough warm air rather defeats the economy advantage of the diesel.

JCP, modern diesels are slightly slower to warm up than petrols, but I find that slightly warm air is coming through within 5 minutes.

This morning (-0.5) my car had a frozen screen; I sprayed it with de-icer but it froze again less than a mile down the road. I stopped but noticed that the bottom of the screen had already started to melt, so sat there for a couple of minutes, then just turned the wiper on.

Retro fitting the heated screen is always going to be possible, but it certainly won't be cheap.

I must find my frost cover out!

I don't approve of the "wipe a porthole and press on" solution

Me neither Even worse is the "tank commander" slot some people seem think is OK to clear in a snow-covered screen. And of course clearing the snow off their lights, or the roof of the car, is just too much effort. I suppose they regard the luxury of being able to travel quickly and with minimal effort as not being worth a tiny bit of exertion on their part on the odd occasion when the weather compromises the vehicle's safe operation...

running the engine until there is enough warm air rather defeats the economy advantage of the diesel.

If you have the A/C on then the cold, dry air is pretty effective at clearing condensation without having to wait for the engine to warm up. I was skeptical at first but these days I just leave the climate control on 20 degrees (not the soporific 22 suggested in the manual) and hitting the demist button clears the screen surprisingly swiftly even from cold - I'd say no slower than my previous, petrol-engined car with no A/C used to manage.

If you have the A/C on then the cold, dry air is pretty effective at clearing condensation without having to wait for the engine to warm up. I was skeptical at first but these days I just leave the climate control on 20 degrees (not the soporific 22 suggested in the manual) and hitting the demist button clears the screen surprisingly swiftly even from cold - I'd say no slower than my previous, petrol-engined car with no A/C used to manage.

So far it is better than I feared but the A/C is inoperative below 4c as the compressor is de-clutched to protect it.

So far it is better than I feared but the A/C is inoperative below 4c as the compressor is de-clutched to protect it.

Agreed, but you are still pushing air through the drier, so it still does something.

Heated windscreen would have been on my option list if available on the Greenline model.

Worked great on a Ford I had in cold damp weather stopping the inside misting or icing up and makes ice on the outside easy to remove without chemicals.

The heated screen will be the only thing I will miss from the Mondeo. Shame it wasn't an option on the Greenline. It would have been the first option to tick.

Agreed, but you are still pushing air through the drier, so it still does something.

Ummmm...... nope. The drying effect of air conditioned air comes from the air conditioning process. There's no 'dryer' other than the dehumidifying effect in the condenser (chiller) unit. If a/c is off there's no drying effect.

That said, does the a/c always stay 'off' at <4degC, even if you have selected windscreen demist?

The connections for the heated screen are at the bottom on either side.

That said, does the a/c always stay 'off' at <4degC, even if you have selected windscreen demist?

I don't know, but my feeling from all of last winter was that with the distribution to "full screen" and the fan on then it was working.

The connections for the heated screen are at the bottom on either side.

Is that really a Yeti Windscreen? It looks too square.

I'll see, when I'm at home tonight, if there is anything on ELSAWIN (there ought to be) about wiring and switches.

As mentioned before, retro fitting a heated windscreen ought to be possible, if a little expensive. Might not a simpler, but more extreme solution, be to buy a replacement Yeti with a heated screen fitted?

I just use a 2000W DEFA interior heater on a simple timeclock which turns the heater on about 30minutes before I leave.

I leave the house mostly on the same time each day so that works fine, if you need more flex just buy a programmable timeclock.

Then the only thing is you need to do is roll in the weather resistant powercable.

No ice, no fogging just a nice warm cabin ready to go.

Of course this only work if you can park close enough to your house or garage

Is that really a Yeti Windscreen? It looks too square.

Isn't that because of the large area of darkened glass at the screen bottom that we can't normally see?

Isn't that because of the large area of darkened glass at the screen bottom that we can't normally see?

On reflection (pardon the pun ) I agree.

As Mike has stated wiring connection seems to be at the bottom.

Hi

I park my car on the drive at the side of our house and because I go to work at 0530 have done the following. I bought a waterproof remote controled exterior socket from tool station and turned it into an extension lead by fitting cable and an RCD plug, the socket is mounted on the external wall, the cable passes through the wall and plugs into an internal power point. An electric greenhouse heater is placed in the back of the car pluged into the remote control socket. When I go into the kitchen at 0500 I switch on the kettle, zap the remote socket and by the time I leave 30 mins later the windsreens are all cleared and the interior of the car is warm. Total cost including heater around £50.Obviously this is only any good if you can get close to your house.

What a good/simple idea.:yes:

Were do you place the heater ,and what wattage is it?

Amazon have a best seller of 60 watts that looks suitable.