The Machine

iTrader: (8)

Hey everyone, I'm going to try and explain this the best way I can. I bought my car not too long ago and it had a shitty tint job on the rear. I removed the tint myself and new tint was put on. There was quite a bit of glue left on the rear window that I removed and no razor blade was removed during any part of the removal on the rear. All of the lines on the grid look to be intact without any breaks. Going back to when I bought the car, I honestly can't remember if the rear defroster even worked worth a damn then as it was still warm out when I bought the car so the defroster wasn't really used much. Plus with the shitty bubbled tint job, I couldn't really even tell if it would be worked because everything was blurry when looking out of the rear window. I've been digging around on here, but coming up with minimal results as to what the problem could be.

Here is what I have done so far:

Under hood fuses have been checked as well as the relay. The fuse there works fine and you can audibly hear the relay click on and off when pressing the defrost button in the car.

The fuse in the kick panel on the driver side has also been checked and it is in working order.

The defroster light does come on when it is turned on and goes off in the allotted amount of time.

I assume that since the light comes on when the defroster button is pressed, as well as all the fuses and relay under the hood are working, that the switch is ok as well so no need to tear apart the dash and test it.

The radio and antenna work fine and there is no static.

I have taken both C pillar panels off and checked in there as well.



There is no voltage going to any of the 3 leads connected to the rear window. The top one is the antenna. The other two are for the defroster. All connections are secure.




The passenger side looks to just be a ground hook-up. I tested there for voltage too just in case and there was nothing. This connection is also secure.




I unplugged the white connector from the antenna module and tested for voltage. It has 12v going to it when the car is on. The radio works just fine and there is no static even when this is unplugged from the module. The defroster has no effect on voltage either when it is turned on/off.




I also tested the brown connector going into the module. There is no voltage going to the connector at any time. Doesn't matter if the car is on, or if the defroster is on/off. The radio is also not effected by this when it is unplugged.

Here is a diagram the dealer gave me when I was there today picking something up.





Am I missing something? Is there something else that needs to be checked? On the diagram where it says F3, if the fuse is good there (fuse 30 in the kick panel and yes it is) I would say that power should be getting back all the way to the brown connector with the black/yellow wire (as seen in the picture and on the diagram).

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

The Machine

iTrader: (8)

Thanks for all the responses!

I will update what the problem was anyway in case someone else comes along and searches this topic.

Prior to all this I had the kick panel fuse box replaced due to a botched independent fog light mod. The dealer put the new fuse box in. Apparently the connector containing the black/yellow wire was not plugged in fully in the rear of the fuse panel and was causing this issue.

Also the night before taking it to the dealer when I made a last ditch effort to diagnose the rear defroster not working. In the process the Check TPMS System error came on the MID and the air bags lights were on as well. So from moving the wires around to see which connector the black/yellow wire went to, I must have jiggled the connector loose even more causing those two functions not to work.

So there you have it. It was a loose connection in the back of the fuse box in the kick panel.