rice_rocket88

I am not sure if I posted on this forum.. but now that it's getting cold out here in the northeast... I'm back to my slow defroster. To be clear, everything works, no deleted lines can't see a problem it certainly works.. but it's slow! Out of the billions of cars I have owned/own it is by far twice as slow or more to defrost the window. Usually I would say within a mile or less I would see some good results. Dropping my kid off at school is exactly 2.2 miles, and on the E60 it will have the warm spots, but I still cannot clearly see through the rear. I'm considering doing a rear backup camera.... ghetto style, ie separate monitor and camera since it still seems a bit too expensive for my liking to retrofit into my nav screen. That's a different story though. Anyone else notice this?

cakes

are your windows tinted? Tint will slow the defrost process

rice_rocket88

Yes they are. .but so are all the other cars, same tint and installed by the same person. .

JHR-5

I was having the same problem till I had my boot wiring loom repaired.

rice_rocket88

Hmm interesting.. I'm assuming by that you mean you have a wagon.. I have a sedan so I would think there is no boot wiring loom to repair since none are moving wires?

jtbgonesailing

The wireing harness for the different antennas in the back glass and defrost grid travel through the right trunk hinge on the e60 as well as the e61.

rice_rocket88

Oh, great to know! I think I'll look into this then... off hand, do you know what wiring is for the defrost? I'm going to search now..

Editing now:

No info on sedan wiring.. plenty for the E61. Looks like rear defrost is on the left side wiring loom.. but I still have to figure this out for the sedan. I remember it being a really miserable fit when I did my suspension.. Hope to locate the specifics before I crawl myself into it

evolotion

Get access to the wiring at the side of the glass by whatever means, turn on the defrost, measure the voltage either side of the glass. one side should be within 1v of ground and the other should be within 1v of the alternator output (circa 13.8/14.4v) if one of the wires is hovering around 2-10v for example, then it requires attention, and dont run the defrost untill you have found and fixed the problem, as wherever in the wiring is causing this voltage drop will be getting bloody hot and my damage other wiring.

rice_rocket88

Haven't had a chance to test out voltage, it's been too cold in the mornings, and with the kids and it being dark, can't test at night. I took a closer look at all the heating elements, and it looks like whoever had tint on or off /removed might have scraped 3 of the bottom lines. It's not completely off, and I don't have any dead spots, so it looks like it may solve some of the problems, but probably not all. As far as I've been reading the voltage goes across all of the individually so even if I had more resistance on those three lines, it shouldn't affect the rest. As soon as I get a warmer break I'm going to be putting in a backup camera, so I'll have the hinge harness exposed in order for me to fish the wires through and I'll try to give it a check on voltage. I appreciate the help guys. At this point I won't bother to take off the back window tint to get to the three heater wires (and it doesn't help my testing.. so I'll have to hit the in/out contacts if I can to measure the voltage).

jtbgonesailing

Should be fairly easy to spot the wire/wires affected if you look in the trunk on the right side below the parcel shelf. May need to remove the battery access trim insert from the trunk. Anyhow, where the right hinge is attached to the underside of the rear shelf, you should spot the wireing harness bundle exiting the hinge assembly. The wireing bundle in wrapped in black cloth tape to keep it neat. The wireing bundle does a loop bend, within this bending area is where the offending wires will be located if this is your problem. Merely unwrapp the cloth tape in this area and examine the insulation on each wire within the bundle. You are looking for broken or frayed insulation on the wire.

God look...