there you are, nippy morning jump in the car. Heater on full belt and the back windows steamed up, flick the HRW switch and the window clears in seconds. Or it should.
What actually happens is you jump in flick the switch and only 3 bars work and you can't see out the window until the heater fan clears it.
So what can you do? Well buy a new rear window, not cheap, or you can go and buy a repair paint kit.
These are not cheap, that one is made by Comma and cost nearly 9 quid!!!
Also everyone should have a multi meter in their tool kit, they are very cheap these days and are very usefull.
That meter cost £4.99 from Maplins electronics which are in every city in the country. Well worth it.
Anyway first thing to do is some basic checks. If the window is not working at all then check the fuse for it. Ok?
Is the relay clicking when you flick the switch
If not then the relay or the switch are suspect. Check them and check voltages etc.
If these are alright time to look at the back window.
Turn the switch on and if you have a ph1 hatch the power feed goes through the springs plate on the bottom of the tailgate, check for voltage on the car side. ok? Shut the tailgate.
Get inside the car and with the HRW still n check the votlage across the spade connectors to the window. It should be battery voltage which will be at least 12 volts with the car off.
No voltage then theres a wiring problem which will take effot and time to find and fix.
Supposing you only have 2 or 3 lines out.
Have a look at the lines, you should be able sto see the breaks. If you are not sure then all you can do it check with the multimeter.
in this picture I am probing the spade connector with my left hand and holding the other probe before the break with my right hand. There is battery voltage there, but if I move my right hand about 10mm to the left after the break the voltage is zero so that is the break.
You need to clean the screen properly then follow your paints instructions.
Mine came in a tipex bottle with the tipex brush thing, well it was the same as tipex.
Now as girls use nail polish I though a female might be better at applying it, she wasn't so I done it myself.
I found the template no use as is was about 4mm wide and the actual element is about 1mm wide. The thick brush didn't help either.
I tried my best and its noticable from the outside, its not helped by that fact the paint is silver instead of copper.
With my paint you have to give it 2 coats then wait 5 hours before using the HRW.
What I did you check that the paint had covered the gap was checked the resistance of the element, the broken ones were open circuit whilst the good element and the repaired ones were around 2ohms.
So they should work ok.
There wasn't much paint in the bottle so I only fixed 3 lines, the bottom 3 had long 6-8 inch bits missing so I will try another day to sort them, but I am not paying that much cash again!
Linear Mode
