Are frosted windows normal for these trucks?

[chauncey0337]

No matter how dry you get the inside, condensation is going to find it's way in/out to the WARMER side even if your truck is ALMOST airtight and there's no way it's even close.... Science. Roll down a couple of windows, fresh air. If your truck wont do it, you make it do it. Just saying.

 

[DenaliAK]

Mitigating the moisture can be done pretty easily, which makes it much more controllable and reduces most, if not all, interior frost issues. I deal with it daily and manage to almost never have frost on the inside. Fog and condensation can be an entirely separate issue, even though they seem connected.

I can have a car loaded with kids, and all the heat and breath moisture will fog up the windows. The only way to keep it off is by cranking the defrost, and the hotter the better. To keep the frost from forming, air out the car as well as you can before you park it. Yes, that sometimes means I run the defrost and rear heat at max while at the same time cracking a couple of windows. It removes the majority of the moisture from the air. If it's -10 and I park it immediately after running like that for just a couple of minutes, I won't have any frost on the insides of the glass next time I start the truck.

There are a lot of variables, though. If it's -10, chances are high that it is very dry out, extremely low humidity weather. This obviously helps reduce any fog/frost/condensation. If it's 35 and snowing, it's probably at or close to 100% humidity, and it's actually more difficult to keep windows clear under those conditions even though the fact that it's warmer might make us make a logical jump the other way.

---------- Post added at 11:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 PM ----------

Of course, the OP could just have a crapped-out HVAC system, too.....

 

[Rivieraracing]

ErikRichard, what's the weather like where you are? Are you dealing with rain where you are and if so how much? Could you be experiencing a leak somewhere in your truck and not know it yet? I'd recommend searching the whole truck for any signs of moisture where there shouldn't be (wet carpet and such) because it doesn't make sense on how bad you are saying that the windows fog and freeze up like you are saying with out a water leak somewhere in your truck.

I live in a very rainy part of the continent most of the time, and this time of year we also deal with the cold weather on top of it (not as cold as alot of places but do deal with weather cold enough to freeze!). My windows will fog up from time to time, especially with folks in the car after just hopping in the truck after being out in the rain for a bit, but usually I can just turn the rear heat on full blast for a few minutes to compliment the front air and it will knock down the fogged up windows enough to turn the rear air on at 1 position to maintain the mostly fog free windows the rest of the time!!

I've never really experience the internally frozen windows but once, that was because I'd left a couple sleds in my truck overnight from going snow sledding and they had been soaked and that moisture had actually frozen the back window somewhat because that's where the sleds were!

Also, how hot does the rear air get for you? Can you have it on full blast heat for a long while without it getting too hot in the truck or does it even get hot at all? If it's kinda warm, might do what I did and flush out your rear air heater core, mine would be kinda warm while driving and when I came to a stop it would get cold and when I started to drive again it would go back to kinda warm again! It had been like this for the last year and a half and since it's been like that it wasn't doing as good of a job to defog the rear windows as well as warming up the back like when I first bought the truck. Mow since I've done the flushing on the core, not only do my windows defog way faster but I also have to turn the temp down a ton after a short bit of using it because it now gets real hot in the truck real fast in the full hot setting!

 

[M3PO]

Could you be experiencing a leak somewhere in your truck and not know it yet? I'd recommend searching the whole truck for any signs of moisture where there shouldn't be (wet carpet and such) because it doesn't make sense on how bad you are saying that the windows fog and freeze up like you are saying with out a water leak somewhere in your truck.

This is what I was thinking. My parents had a Camry years ago that was nearly totaled twice and brought back from the dead by the insurance company. After that it always had condensation problems. I am not saying the OP's truck is wrecked, but Riviera brings up a good point, if there is a leak, you will always battle fogging problems. A leak could be more than water running in to a seal like the moon roof, the air vents (body vents, not HVAC) at the back of the vehicle too, if one of those is broke or stuck open, it can allow that water spray off the wet roads in to the cabin.
Just last week I noticed my truck had tons of condensation on the inside windows, given the above story, this worried me. As it turns out, I did have a leak, one of the passenger windows wasn't rolled all the way up, I didn't notice as I don't always drive the truck far, it is a second vehicle.