Retrofit rear window heater or mirror heater?

Recently updated on August 30, 2021 at 08:47 am

We have a few tips for you to replace or install a rear window heater. Nowadays, car models with a rear window heater are almost always fitted as standard. Older vehicles either have no rear window heating at all or the heating wires have often become defective over time. At least in the cold winter months, a lack of rear window heating can quickly become a nuisance when driving. Because the heating wires of the rear window heater prevent the window from fogging up and thus guarantee a perfect view to the rear. Without a rear window heater you would have to constantly wipe the fogged rear window, which is tedious and simply not feasible when driving. Below are tips for retrofitting a missing or defective rear window heater.

Disk replacement as an alternative

An alternative to renewing or installing a rear window heater is to replace the existing rear window. The old window is then completely removed in a specialist workshop and replaced with a new rear window with heating, insofar as the vehicle manufacturer offered it ex works at the time or a current manufacturer has suitable replicas in its range. A new window costs a few hundred euros depending on the vehicle model. Added to this are the removal and installation costs by the specialist workshop. Because the heating wires in the window must still have a power connection. For this purpose, the connection cable of the rear window must still be laid accordingly in the vehicle. The heating function of the rear window can then be conveniently switched on and off from the dashboard using a switch.

Heated rear window films are less useful

Another option is to use a special rear window film to stick on. This film has integrated heating wires that heat the rear window accordingly and ensure that the window does not fog up. The special foils are extremely easy to handle with regard to assembly. For this reason, the film can also be applied by laypersons in the rear window if there is some manual skill. For this purpose, the special film is simply stuck from the inside of the vehicle onto the existing rear window. There is nothing more to do for the assembly of the special film. To ensure that the heating wires in the film are also supplied with electricity, a cable must be laid for this. Basically, it is possible to supply the heating wires of the film with electricity via the cigarette lighter in the vehicle. In principle, however, it is also possible to connect the heating of the film to the vehicle power circuit.

Installation is not always as easy as expected!

However, specific knowledge is required for this. For this reason, the simple operation via the vehicle's cigarette lighter is often used. Then the power plug only has to be plugged in. Overall, the film assembly of the rear window heater is cheaper and quicker to accomplish compared to replacing a rear window. Because you can stick and insert the power plug into the cigarette lighter yourself, without having to go to a specialist workshop.

However, the effectiveness of such a film leaves much to be desired in most cases. This is one reason why the option for retrofitting can hardly be found in the range of current accessory shops. Tip: Defective heating wire? Repair is possible. How this works can be seen in the article "Rear window heating simply repaired with conductive silver!“Read.

Retrofitting mirror heating is easier

Retrofitting heated exterior mirrors is fundamentally easier. There are many suppliers here who have a self-adhesive polyester surface heating in their range, which is simply glued to the back of the car exterior mirror. Depending on the version, such a film is suitable for many car makes and can also be used for other applications. The surface temperature of such a film is approx. 20 ° C (45% RH). As an alternative, there are also complete mirror glasses as an exchange and of course completely new ones Mirrors.

In any case, however, the problem of power supply remains. A connection to the vehicle electronics, regardless of the way, including a switch for activating and deactivating is necessary, as is the case with the heated rear window. And finally ... If you have a defect in the rear window heater or would like to completely retrofit a heater, you can have a new window with heater installed by a specialist company. Alternatively, simply stick a special film with heating wires. This can often be done on your own. The power connection can be used via the cigarette lighter. The process for heated mirror glasses is much simpler.

We hope that you the info report on the topic / term Retrofit rear window heater or mirror heater (Additional names / keywords: retrofit exterior mirror heating, surface heating, rear-view mirror heating, rear window heating, rear window heating, mirror glass heating, retrofit mirror heating, window heating, surface heating, heating wire, conductive silver, heated rear window) from the field of autotuning. Our goal is that the largest German-language tuning dictionary (Tuning Wikipedia) and to explain tuning terms from A to Z easily and understandably. Almost every day we expand this lexicon and how far we are, you can HERE see. Soon the next one will be Tuning scene concept be illuminated by us. By the way, you will be informed about new topics if you have ours Feed subscribe to.

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