Hello all, quick question about my heated windscreen. The passenger side isn't working. I've checked the fuse and connector and I'm getting voltage past the connector at the corner of the windscreen. So after verifying that, I decided to do a visual check of the "squiggly" lines in the window itself. I noticed that at the very lower corner of the passenger side, the last line that comes down the window deviates and "swerves" away from the others and then comes back and crossed several of the other lines. I'm guessing this isn't supposed to be like this? Could this explain this side not working? It's a plinkerton windscreen, but I don't know if it's from the factory or not.

Thanks

 

You have voltage at the plus wire going to the windscreen, which is good. Now move meter probe to the other wire on that connector, which should be ground. If you have 12 volts there, wind screen is OK, and ground connection is no good. Put meter probe on one side of connector with glass attached, and other side of meter (-) battery terminal.

Wire inside glass did not change itself, may be molded in on a separate layer. If it was shorted together, it would overheat and crack glass, or just be a fuse.

 

so I have voltage on both wires when testing against a chassis ground. What should I check now? Thanks for the help!

 

Well, you just saved buying a wind screen. Or having a turkey or gravel hit it while off roadin...lol

Now let us look for the ground (earth point). On the RAVE electrical circuit drawing, battery volts goes thru fuse 8 under the hood (40 amp), to the wind screen, out of the wind screen, and to earth at connector C018, pin # 8. The connector numbers, wire color, and pin numbers are shown on the drawing, but in very small fonts. In this case the wire is Black.

In the RAVE electrical library, the connector C018 is shown, with a picture of location and the connector arrangement. Looks to be under kick panel on right side. Pix attached. Prime location for leak by sunroof, etc. I attached a print of all the things that get their earth ground from this point. There are so many things that if the main ground was bad, you would have a lot of other issues. So I would test Pin 8 first, verify it is good back to wind screen, etc. Could be corroded connector, wire pulled out of connector, cut wire, etc. ; or just pull apart and re-seat.

 

Also check for any stone chips/starts on your glass, these will quite often kill the heating unit also.

 

Agreed. I am hoping that is not the issue here, as there is dc voltage on both sides of the connector, which may point to open ground connection. But Mike is also correct, all it would take is just one of the tiny wires remaining to provide that voltage. Once the ground issue is resolved, volts to ground should be 12+ on the hot side, and very low on the other side, when powered up. But you may find that those stone chips or other failures have caused "stripes" from only some of the wires working which have been featured in pictures on other posts.

And Mike makes the point that rock damage can do this, so it may be covered by insurance.

 

Thanks for the thourough break down, I think I accidentally fixed it... I started checking the ground path as you suggested and the ground seemed good. So I was probing all the connections with my multimeter and I think the act of probing them reseated a bad connection, probably the ground connector at the window. Anyway, for now it seems to be working, I'm getting 14v on one side and almost nothing on the black wire and the window felt warm so all should be good.

Now all I need is an icy morning, I cant wait

Thanks again for the help, you guys are awesome!