In the lower part of some windshields, especially those vehicles destined for the Great White North, there are the same kind of defroster elements applied to the rear windshield placed down low on the front windshield. They are supposed to be just under where the wipers "park."
These are turned on when the "defroster" mode is activated. These are specifically made to melt the snow / ice built up from either overnight, or when packing snow down there when driving. These things get hot, and will melt snow / ice away. But the defroster must be activated.
However, I don't know if our "Poverty" vehicle selection (Mirage) has these elements or not. Even the hooptie Hyundais I was involved with had said elements. How do I know? Because part of the build at the Hyundai / Kia plants is to press the defroster button after the front windshield is applied (to destination specific vehicles). This was done near the end of the assembly line when the key, and of course, the front windshield was installed. It was easy to remember to trip the button because the assemblers had to connect leads to the body to make this connection. And the check was to make sure the leads and their connections weren't missed. A dozen stations down the line, they apply their hand to the windshield bottom and make sure it was hot. Leave the button alone to make sure it would time out correctly within another workstation.
To be even further descriptive, Hyundai-Kia tried to throw their weight around with DOW regarding cost of the urethane seal windshield to body, when DOW was forced to reformulate to remove a chemical or 2 that had been added to a Homeland Security list of chemicals no longer to be used (in order to prevent bad guys from having ready access to them). DOW, who was much larger a company than Hyundai, was forced to make this change and it was more expensive than the previous. But DOW told Hyundai they would hold their price and eat the difference. Hyundai said, "anyo, must have cost down, we will not approve the new formulation unless cost down." DOW told Hyundai to go fly a kite. Hyundai couldn't believe any company would dare not do what they say (Hyundai drives Korean suppliers into the ground, and in many cases, bankruptcy. Then Hyundai buys the company and gets their cheap crap even cheaper), but refused to sign approval of the chemical change. DOW said to hell with H-K and brought in the new formulation because they had to, or face fines, shutdowns or worse from Homeland Security. And then guess what? Unlike the old urethane, the new formulation was electrically conductive before curing. And the urethane seal ran across the defroster body leads (and shorted) when the windshield was put into position.
Guess what engineer was assigned to figure out why cars were arcing, burning and smoking up the interiors with the most acrid crap a person could imagine breathing and smelling? Can you say 7milesout?
I had to figure all this out and implement a countermeasure ASAP, because the line doesn't shut down for burning cars. They just shove'em out of the way (at Hyundai) and run the next one. This is just one of the hundreds of SNAFUs encountered at Hyundai-Kia that would have NEVER made it to the plant at Toyota. Because Toyota has a better mindset. It is more like, "when in Rome, do as the Romans."
I got published in a Hyundia (internal) Technical Journal for that one. Said journal was published monthly and sent all over Hyundai-Kia facilities across the world. Fun but stressful times.
I'll see if my vehicle has these defroster lines. In any event, it wouldn't help much with the bent up passenger side wiper. I think it would still have plenty of cold area underneath it to pack snow. But I'm not sure about that...
7milesout
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View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.5 L/100 km ... 51.0 mpg (Imp)
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