Eliminate Foggy Windows Without Impacting Range

[IssacZachary]

I just have to convince myself that the water droplets have somewhere to go.

It seems the Rain-X AntiFog is working. Maybe it had to cure. I still get some fog and frost, but I notice that there's now considerably more on the rear window, which I didn't treat with AntiFog. But there is one thing I do get. Water droplets on the inside of the windshield. These leave little water spot marks when they dry.

[SageBrush]

I just have to convince myself that the water droplets have somewhere to go.

It seems the Rain-X AntiFog is working. Maybe it had to cure. I still get some fog and frost, but I notice that there's now considerably more on the rear window, which I didn't treat with AntiFog. But there is one thing I do get. Water droplets on the inside of the windshield. These leave little water spot marks when they dry.

Interesting -- so the droplets are not heavy enough to fall down the glass.

This water is distilled (evaporated) so it might suggest that the spot you are seeing is from collection of dirt on the glass that is collected by the condensate. Perhaps a glass cleaning once a week will help.

[IssacZachary]

On the side windows, yes the droplets run down the glass. On the windshield the angle must affect the way the gravity pulls on the droplets. If there's enough moisture the droplets collect and run down the windshield. A quick buffing gets the water marks off. Maybe that's what's helping the AntiFog do its thing, maybe I hadn't buffed enough.

[IssacZachary]

If your having bad fog problems and you live in a snowy climate I'd suggest using something like Weathertech or rubber floor mats. Snow getting on the carpet and melting really holds the moisture and then when you heat the interior of the car that moisture gets in the air and condenses on the windows.
I was having bad fogging issues when I first got my Leaf and it turned snowy, after I got the Weathertech floor mats(which I think are kind of overpriced but do work) and regularly wet vac them dry of standing water things are much better. It's my belief why ICE vehicles don't fog as bad is because they have so much more heat available that they are actually able to try out the carpet, not so much with a Leaf where heat is a precious commodity.
I don't know about Fog-X but I know with Rain-X your supposed to let the film dry before wiping it off, when I was using it I let it dry over night and wiped it off in the morning and it would probably be best to do this when it was above freezing although I don't know this for a fact.

As soon as I could get the floor mats off of the floor (they were frozen at first) and hung them up to dry I noticed a big improvement! Thanks!

I wonder if there'd be any merit in fabricating some heated floor mats.

[jjeff]

If your having bad fog problems and you live in a snowy climate I'd suggest using something like Weathertech or rubber floor mats. Snow getting on the carpet and melting really holds the moisture and then when you heat the interior of the car that moisture gets in the air and condenses on the windows.
I was having bad fogging issues when I first got my Leaf and it turned snowy, after I got the Weathertech floor mats(which I think are kind of overpriced but do work) and regularly wet vac them dry of standing water things are much better. It's my belief why ICE vehicles don't fog as bad is because they have so much more heat available that they are actually able to try out the carpet, not so much with a Leaf where heat is a precious commodity.
I don't know about Fog-X but I know with Rain-X your supposed to let the film dry before wiping it off, when I was using it I let it dry over night and wiped it off in the morning and it would probably be best to do this when it was above freezing although I don't know this for a fact.

As soon as I could get the floor mats off of the floor (they were frozen at first) and hung them up to dry I noticed a big improvement! Thanks!

I wonder if there'd be any merit in fabricating some heated floor mats.

The thing is you wouldn't want it on when driving as that would evaporate the moisture in the air, which would in turn condense on the cold windows. No personally I think the best thing is to suck up the water while it's liquid and not let it soak into something like the carpets where it would be much harder to remove. I also took out my Weathertech mats yesterday(60F and sunny, in Feb in MN now thats wrong!) anyway the carpet was basically dry underneath, was happy to see that.

[IssacZachary]

So far this year with RainX inside and out I notice that for the most part both inside and out the windows tend to fog less than other cars, with the exception of the inside of the windshield itself. That seems to fog more actually. I wonder if I reapply RainX interior Anti-Fog to the inside of the windshield it will help.

[specialgreen]

I live in an area where it stays below freezing for about 4 months. The air outside the car is very dry, and you can get a sore throat breathing it. So you want the cabin to be much more humid. But... if the cabin gets too humid, you get fogging. On my previous car (ICE), I'd adjust the intake/recirculate slider to a position where it was sucking-in just enough dry air to keep from fogging.

Unfortunately, the Leaf seems to have an "all or nothing" approach: either you use 100% recirculate (and get fogging within a few minutes), or you use 100% outside air. Lately, I've been alternating recirc/intake/recirc/intake, about every 4 minutes. Not a good solution (unless someone wants to build a timer circuit, with a slider or knob to set the duty cycle).

I was considering putting the heater on recirculate, but also cracking-open a rear window a quarter inch. I'll try the RainX or FogDoc, but I've never heard of anybody who can just recirculate cabin air below 20F (and we already hit 12F, on November 9th).

[LeftieBiker]

There IS a partial Recirculate mode, and while it won't work in any of the defrost modes, it WILL work with the vent set to Floor and the fan on 2 or higher, because some air goes out the windshield vents in that mode. With Recirculate on, press and hold the Recirculate button for 2 seconds. The moment the light starts to flash, release it. If it flashes twice and goes out, with no message on the screen, you are in "auto" or "partial" recirc mode. If it displays "Fresh Air" at the bottom of the LCD screen, try again.

[IssacZachary]

I find that even when the Leaf lets me use both defrost and recirculation together (which happens at around 30 below zero) I always end up turning recirculation off. Also turning on the heater or defroster to it's lowest settings and leaving recirculation off or partially off seems to do a fine job of keeping the windshield clean and doesn't seem to use any more energy or cause any less confort than turning recirculation on at such low settings. My conclusion is that Nissan knew what they were doing when they designed the 2013 and later model year Leafs and that if they had left us the option to use recirculation and defrost at the same time whenever we wanted we'd use more energy trying to raise the glass temperatures above the dew point inside the vehicle than to draw in some drier outside air and therefore we'd end up turning recirculation off anyway.

So when I'm trying to save energy for whatever reason I just use the lowest heater or defroster settings without recirculation or I turn them off when I can see. But most of the time I try to keep passengers and myself happy by simply hitting the "auto" button or the defrost button and letting the Leaf do it's thing. There doesn't seem to be any happy medium. Either I make everyone freeze or I end up turning the heater up to what it would be if I had the "auto" setting on anyway, although I do usually use a lower temperature setting of 60 or 65 degrees during the winter.

I've tried Rain-X Anti-Fog and am not convinced. It seems to have made the front windshield fog more, until I tried cleaning it off. Now it fogs about normal. I'm not sure what I did wrong, maybe used to much, because the other windows seem to have benefited from the Anti-Fog.

Preheating the car seems to be the biggest solution to fogging problems. Preheat the car off of your EVSE power and then set the heater to whatever you want or even use no heater at all. I can go several miles heat-less this way.

Also during rainy or snowy weather take your mats out and hang them up dry overnight inside your home (as long as they aren't frozen to the floor. I'm thinking of getting some sort of heat pads to put under my mats to get them to thaw.) Or get plastic Weather Tech mats and dump them out when they get water in them. The more moisture you can keep out of the car the better. Maybe use a good rain coat or umbrella to keep yourself drier as well. Keep a dry coat in your car for after skiing and put the wet one in a plastic bag.

[BuckMkII]

In a pinch, you can make antifog from detergent. A few weeks ago, I put a TINY smear of Dawn on a damp paper towel and rubbed that on the inside of the windows. Then I kinda polished it off with a dry paper towel. The second step may not have been necessary, but it looked like I might have laid it on too thick. Maybe I should have let it dry first to see. You don't want enough detergent to make it look streaky when it dries, but enough to provide a surfactant to flatten the tiny droplets that cause the fogging.

It worked fairly well. After I run the climate control timer for preheat, the areas I didn't treat are very foggy, and the treated areas are barely foggy. Half a minute of defroster use after starting the car and all is well.

Didn't read all four pages, so sorry if this is redundant.