Windshield will not defrost

We've had four days in the last two weeks that the temperature was in the teens or twenties and had snow or ice falling. Even after scraping the windshield and having the defroster on high with the temp knob all the way to hot, the windshield will ice over except for small circle on the drivers and passengers side. I scrape it off and within a few miles the windshield freezes over again. There is very little air coming out of the defrost vents. I stopped at the dealer and they found a TSB that addresses this issue and have ordered the parts. Has anyone heard of this problem and what do they change or fix? This is on a 2010 TRD Sport Prerunner. Thanks.

 

I think I recall reading about that...a diverter door that catches at partway closed. They replace the door and its hardware.

 

you have snow on your intake, clean it off!!!!

 

There was snow on the intake, they cleaned it all off but the airflow was still less than half of both the tacomas they checked for comparison. They also checked the cabin air filter, again no help. The diverter door sounds like a possibility, there is a lot of air going somewhere, its just not coming out the defroster vent. I'll let you all know when the parts come in and have been installed.

 

looks like someone has a dead critter blocking the vent .....

 

I was at the dealer for the same problem and they told me it was a flap in the heater box that was faulty its also funny it happened just after my last service when they sprayed some kind of solvent in the blower motor to stop the squeak, so they said it would be 20.00 for the part and 800.oo labour for the fix. So i told them I would fix it my self so I took the dash and the center console off to get at the heater and found out that the problem wasnt the flap it was the foam that lines the defrost vent had come off and plugged the defrost vent for the front windshield so I pulled out the foam and put the dash back together and fixed it. all it took was 4 hours on my part. ECP wouldnt cover this problem and my truck was over the factory warranty by 2000km here are a few pictures hope this might help someone else and save them from spending $$$$

Fist picture is the vents
second picture you can see the foam that blocked the vent
third is the foam I pulled out there was 2 pieces 3"x5"
and the fourth picture is a picture of the the truck without the dash

 

i have had something simular happen on a different vehicle... it got stuck on one position and no matter what ya tried.......defrost ,vent , feet etc it wouldnt change. i believe they said it was some sort of check valve. they replaced it and have not had an issue since.

 

it never gets that cold here, when i had my old car... an 86 subaru gl with absolutely no ac at all.. i would pour water on the outside of the windshield and that would work...if its that cold i doubt it would work...maybe try using hot water?

 

hot water might crack the windshield.. Ive cracked the glass on my old 94 volvo doing that

 

yeah, dont do that haha

 

Nice DIY fix!

 

Friggen $800. WTF. I wonder if you can reach down into the defroster vent with a flexible grabber and retrieve that foam.

 

Update: I called the dealer today, the TSB kit is finally in. I will drop the truck off Monday afternoon and pick it up Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. I let you all know how it goes.

 

Nope, I got the truck back this afternoon. The receipt says "16218 C. NOT ENOUGH AIR COMING FROM DEFROSTER VENT. C. FOAM INNER LINNING IN VENT CAME UNGLUED CLOGGING DEFROSTER VENT. R. REPL DEFROSTER NOZZLE OR DUCT PER TSB 0224-10 OP CODE AC1002 2.O HRS." It looks like there were no dead critters in the vent, just loose foam. The volume of air coming out of the defroster vent is over double of what I had when I dropped the truck off Monday evening. The service writer said that the vent has been redesigned because of this problem.

 

Tank to you to post theses 4 photos, you save me a lot of and time!!! After seeing that i probably have the same problem on my 2010 tacoma, i use this tools (See picture) to remove all the foam. It takes me about 10 minutes and all the air comes out. I've just enter back and fort the tools to make some hole in the foam. The foam does not comes out in one pieces but the defrost work very well!!!!

 

Hate to revive an old thread but I feel the need to add some information for someone else who might use the search function and find this thread like I did.

Thanks whitetacoma for your pictures and detailed account of the problem.

Last night the weather was terrible, cold, raining and at times snowing. Half my windshield fogged with the defroster on full. I realized that half the vents from the middle and towards the passenger side had no air blowing out.

I'm not really interested in taking apart the dash or paying to have it done. I suspected this foam problem was the cause since the fan was working at all settings, and all other blower "directions" did not seem to have problems.

I could not reach any of the foam with the hemostat I have. I bent a clothes hanger into a curved "stick" I could poke around with to try and feel the problem. After pushing it down far enough I felt/heard what i suspected to be the foam. I had no real way to pull it back out so I just kept stabbing at it and pushing it around. I had the fan on defrost full and some tiny bits came flying out but most of it is still somewhere in there.

However after I had done this I had air blowing fairly consistently across the entire defroster vent and no other vents seem to be blocked from my efforts. I figure this is a temporary fix and the problem could come back at any time since the foam is still down there, but at least for now everything works and it cost me no money and little time.

Will try to get a scope cam or something to take a look down there.

 

05 Tacoma - I have no heat; air blows out of front vent only. A/C and Recirculate lights don't light. Operating temp gets up to normal. Top radiator hose gets hot feels like a lot of pressure on the hose - lowers hose stays cool no matter how long I drive. Both heater core hoses are hot. Temp control panel doesn't seem to do anything, no matter what setting. I was going to change the thermostat, but dont see how that will make the upper and lower vents work... Thanks Stan