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My Defrost

© Copyright 1999, Jim Loy

A couple of years ago, I bought a used Honda CRX. When winter came, I found that almost no warm air came out of the defrost. It hardly melts any frost, at all. I crawled around under the dash board, and saw that every single button on the heater/blower control actually caused levers to move, apparently opening and closing vents. And the blower seemed fairly strong.

I took my car to the local Honda dealer, and they looked around under the dash board. And they told me that the defrost works fine. I said that not much air came out of the defrost vent. They said that most Hondas are like that.

This winter, my father found an ad for a heater/blower, that you Velcro to your dash board, and plug into your lighter, to blow warm air on your windshield. It comes from Comtrad Industries for $29.95 + $5 s&h. They goofed up and sent me leg cream (to rub out those unsightly spider's webs), instead. And they wouldn't send me the heater until they got their leg cream back. Anyway, I finally got the heater, cute little bugger (technical term for objects of about that size and cuteness). I installed it. The Velcro seems stronger than the glue, by the way (I bought more Velcro, because my testing removed much of the glue from the Velcro). And, I found that my lighter provided no electricity (I used a volt meter). The fuse hadn't blown. So, I had Honda fix my cigarette lighter. The heater/blower worked great. It didn't put out much heat; but it is positioned near enough to the windshield to defrost pretty well, I figured. I followed the instruction sheet, and changed to a 20 amp fuse (There is something of a surge, during startup).

That night, we had a blizzard. And the heater defrosted my windshield, beautifully. I nearly hyperventilated, producing frost to test that cute little bugger.


P.S. They paid the postage on the returned leg cream. And, we recently had another cold spell (in March!), and it took 15 minutes for the frost inside the windshield to clear, with both the original blower and the new cute little bugger. So, the results are ambiguous.


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