Hello everyone
i have a 95 Maxima, in GREAT condition, and it appears that the rear defroster has quit working. I haven’t used it in several months so I have no idea how long it’s actually been out so I’m hoping someone might be able to tell me how to repair this.

recently the fan speed would only work on high so I reloaded the module that’s up under the dash and now the variable fan speed control is working like it should. Could those two issues be related?

thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

Lets start with a definition. By rear defroster, do you mean the electric wires in the rear window, or the front defroster that blows air onto the front windshield ?

 

The wires running across the back glass. I inspected them today and did not find any broken or missing wires.

 

Does your button-switch on the dash light up ? If not, try checking the fuse ? As far as looking for a break in the wires in the window, unless it is the major wires running up/down, then a horizontal break will only stop that wire from heating up, and the rest will still work. How about the wire connections to the rear wires ? Have you recently washed you rear window on the inside and accidently hit one of the connections ?

 

The light on the button does work and it come on when I press the button. I’m unable to locate where the wires connect on the back windshield so I can’t see if they’re still connected. If the fuse was to go bad where would that particular fuse be located?

 

Not sure - either in the fusebox by your left knee, or by the battery. It could also be a relay - not sure.

 

The rear window defogger uses two 20 amp fuses, # 38 & # 39 that are in the under dash fuse panel. They are in the right most column, 2nd and 3rd from the top. If the light in the button is coming on then fuse # 38 is good. If fuse # 38 is good, then fuse # 39 will be good. This also means that the relay is good.

The rear window defogger uses 30 to 40 amps. Rather than use one 40 amp fuse, it is cheaper to use two 20 amp fuses in parallel. If one fuse were to blow, that would leave the other 20 amp fuse to supply 30 to 40 amps. Won't happen - it will blow.

Since the power to light the lamp in the defogger switch comes through the relay, the relay is working.

That leaves 3 possibilities:
1) Broken wires between the relay and the rear window.
2) Open capacitor that is used by the heating element
3) Broken wire in the heating element on the rear window.

The connections for the rear window heating element are in the right side C-pillar.

schematic - see page 96: http://boredmder.com/FSMs/Nissan/Maxima/1995/EL.pdf

Photo by Amerikaner83: