While I find that my 2003 ION3 is reasonably sure footed in the snow, there is one winter condition that this car is unable to handle -- internally fogged-up or iced-up windows. Last night, the car was used at 6:00pm for a 30 minute outbound trip in -11 degree C temperature. The interior heating seemed OK and the windows were clear. At 9:30pm in -16 degree C temperature and after leaving the car for three hours, all windows were iced up on the inside, except for a small oval in the middle of the windshield. There was no snow or ice on the outside. After about 20 minutes there was enough heated air to begin the window cleaning work. Problems: 1/ Rotating the air director control to full windshield position (defrost), very little air came out of the instrument panel side vents that are permanently aimed at the side windows to clear these windows in the vicinity of the mirrors. The volume of air was very small, even with the fan on full. I had complained to Saturn in the past about the fact these side vents seem to eject air only when the air director is in the defrost position, and was told in a return phone call by 'Brian' that the side vents act as a release for air only when too much air was pushed into the heating system (No, honestly!). 2/ The rear-window heater was kept on and barely cleared the interior ice after 30 minutes. I had to adjust the air to the Vent position, and the instrument panel centre nozzles were directed to the back of the car to clear the rear window. The outer IP nozzles were pointed at the side windows to help there. 3/ The windshield defroster outlets are biased to the passenger side, clearing that side of the windshield better that the driver's side. The design flaw here is that the light sensor is on the driver's side: it should be on the passenger side.
The problem is related to too much humidity (no wonder when it snows outside and you bring a lot of it into the car with you on your shoes/boots) when the car was (relatively) warm. Next trip, run the AC (or defrost) to try and remove as much as possible of the water vapor. I don't own an Ion, so can't attest to its performance.
Is window fogging a problem common to Saturn? Am in the NY City suburbs and the temperature has been hovering between 0 and 30F. I find that when humidity (dew point) is high, even with the engine hot and A/C on in the defrost position, the windows barely clear at times. The Recirculate button is to Off. Tried various heat settings. Also tried opening a window a crack, which seems to help some. In past Ford and Chrysler cars (Freon type refrigerant), when the windows started to fog and the defroster was switched on, winshield and side windows cleared within a minute. The new cars have the HC134a refrigerant. Does this make a difference in condensing moisture at low ambient temperatures? Since I bought the '01 LW300 recently, just don't know what to expect. I *had* expected better defogger operation. The engine warms up fast and the passenger compartment gets comfortable in a reasonable ammount of time for what it's worth. Oppie
Same dealio here - same car, same thick ice on the INSIDE. I have heard a few suggestions on previous posts, however which may help: 1 - Allow the fan to run a moment after the car is off to clear moisture. Not sure if this applies to winter conditions or summer only (to clear the bacteria stink). I keep forgetting to do it, so I don't know yet either. 2 - Clear the intake for the fan before firing it up. The intake is neatly placed in the most congestible area possible, right under the driver side wiper. When your heater sucks that snow in, the defrogger is doing double time trying to remove moisture from the interior while sucking in nice wet chunks of snow. Again, I keep forgetting, so all I can confirm at this point is that NOT clearing it first definately could be part of the problem... :-/ -e
