Quickclear
Encyclopedia
Quickclear is a European trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

 used by the Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

 for its electrically heated windshield
Windshield
The windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike or tram is the front window. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and are glued...

 technology. Instaclear was the name used sometimes in the United States.

First seen on the 1985 Ford Scorpio/Granada Mk.III
Ford Scorpio
The Ford Scorpio is an automobile that was produced by the Ford Motor Company from 1985 through to 1998.It was the replacement for the European Ford Granada line...

 in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the Ford Taurus
Ford Taurus
The Ford Taurus is an automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United States. Originally introduced in the 1986 model year, it has remained in near-continuous production for more than two decades, making it the fourth oldest nameplate that is currently sold in the North American...

/Mercury Sable
Mercury Sable
The Sable was a very important sedan for both Mercury and the American auto industry.Ford had lagged in introducing mid-size front wheel drive cars to compete against General Motors' Chevrolet Citation and its best-selling Chevrolet Celebrity/Pontiac 6000/Oldsmobile Cutlass/Buick Century quartet as...

 in the U.S., the system uses a mesh of very thin heating wires, or a silver/zinc oxide coated film embedded between two layers of windscreen glass.The overall effect when operative was defogging & defrosting of the windscreen at a very high rate. Landrover (UK) also fitted a similar screen to their Discovery range in the early 1990s some of which were imported to Australia undetected by authorities because at that stage, were not legal in any state. Owing to the high current draw, the system is engineered to operate only when the engine is running, and normally switches off after 10 minutes of operation. The metallic content of the glass has been shown to degrade the performance of certain windshield-mounted accessories, such as GPS navigators, telephone antennas and radar detectors.

"Instaclear" was the introductory name on American models. In early promotional Ford sales literature for Europe, the feature was referred to simply as "Rapid Windscreen De-ice", but the "Quickclear" name began to appear from around 1989 onwards. The system can now be found as either standard equipment or an optional extra on most vehicles produced by Ford or its subsidiaries around the world, but in the U.S. market it was never popular. Besides the original Taurus/Sable, it appeared briefly in the Lincoln
Lincoln (automobile)
Lincoln is an American luxury vehicle brand of the Ford Motor Company. Lincoln vehicles are sold mostly in North America.-History:The company was founded in August 1915 by Henry M. Leland, one of the founders of Cadillac . During World War I, he left Cadillac which was sold to General Motors...

 line in the early 1990s, and in some Land Rovers as well. GM has produced a somewhat similar system called Electriclear.

One problem with the system is that the heating elements can sometimes burn out, leaving one side of the screen uncleared. As the wires are actually embedded in the glass, total replacement of the screen is the only remedy (as opposed to a rear defogger
Defogger
A defogger, demister, or defroster is a system to clear condensation and thaw frost from the windshield, backglass, and/or side windows of a motor vehicle...

, which can usually be repaired with conductive paint). Some owners have been known to smash the screen and submit a fraudulent insurance claim for stone damage, as Quickclear screens are expensive replacement parts and many insurance policies offer a low excess (deductible) for windscreen damage. This type of screen is also known to cause serious problems with tollway recording equipment (E-Tag etc.)
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