Sitting in thoroughly craptacular traffic last night, I began pondering what this button does. It's not one you see very often, and its placement didn't help me much. After RTFM, I had a head-slapping, "well duh!" moment. It's a windshield deicer...
Not exactly useful to me here in SoCal, but back in my Indianapolis and Toronto days, this would have been clutch. Kudos to Kia for putting a premium feature like this into the Rondo; a feature normally equated with vehicles like the Range Rover (pictured below).
I would say, though, that placing the button within the climate controls as Land Rover does would make a lot more sense than left of the steering wheel next to the stability control deactivation switch.
James Riswick, Associate Editor @ 3,020 miles
orangutan says:
12:22 PM, 11/ 8/07
Where is the rear windshield defroster button? Are the wiper controls on the left or right side of the steering wheel?
bankerdanny says:
12:51 PM, 11/ 8/07
My Subaru Forester has a front wiper defroster too
langjie says:
12:57 PM, 11/ 8/07
how is this different then the other defroster button? i'm confused
flipb says:
01:05 PM, 11/ 8/07
orangutan,
The rear defroster button is with the climate controls. In the picture above, you can see the three HVAC dials (left to right: fan speed, function, temperature). Below them, just in front of the shift lever, are three buttons -- left to right, they are: Rear Defrost, A/C, Recirc.
Windshield wipers are controlled by the arm on the right side of the steering column, a la the typical Hyundai/Kia parts bin.
actualsize says:
01:36 PM, 11/ 8/07
The deicer in the Rondo consists of heating elements buried in the glass beneath the wiper blades - so they get unstuck from the ice/snow ASAP.
stovt001 says:
01:54 PM, 11/ 8/07
Cool feature, but it would make more sense to put it near the rear defroster button. It seems like an afterthought this way. Oddly enough, even in Southern California I've had mornings where my car was completely iced over, so this would have been useful. True it doesn't happen often, but for people living where it gets really cold, this must be a God-send.
xl562bx says:
02:44 PM, 11/ 8/07
Neato feature. It should prove effective than turning on the front vents or better yet both at the same time. It should be in conjunction with the rear defroster but that's their take on design. The interior doesn't look too bad, even dressed in plastic.
estreka says:
03:46 PM, 11/ 8/07
Don't you guys have a company defroster anyway?
http://66.160.188.111/roadtests/Comments/1557
skierx420 says:
04:30 PM, 11/ 8/07
I always wonder why Chrysler did away with this feature on its minivans. Although if you check out http://www.allpar.com which is a fan site. They write nasty things about Chrysler for removing them. I wish that they were standard on all cars sold north of the Mason Dixon Line.
jriz says:
04:37 PM, 11/ 8/07
Estreka, sadly he left for greener pastures when Motor Trend offered him 33 cents more per hour. We're presently searching for a new one, interested?
estreka says:
05:28 PM, 11/ 8/07
I gotta wait until my commission is up, but yeah, I'd be interested. How much does defrosting windows rake in?
daveflores says:
09:56 AM, 11/ 9/07
That is pretty sweet. A windshield defroster, side mirror defroster and remote start would make winter so much more bearable for me that it's not even funny.
ramblin says:
06:03 PM, 12/11/07
What is sad, is I just got through melting 3/4" of ice and an inch of sleet off of my parked Rondo with gallons and gallons of warm water. I had forgotten that the Rondo had this feature. I doubt it would have assisted my thawing efforts much. Might get another chance to try it tomorrow morning if the weather advisories pan out.
If you are driving in snow or ice, it will be a nice feature to prevent cooking your eyeballs with the defroster attempting to keep the windshield & wipers ice free. That is if I remember that the feature is there.
I sold my Hyundai recently, and I miss my heated mirrors already. Kia and Hyundai - kudos for the standard heated mirrors!