Frosted by defroster...

[Fisher, Scott]

Well, our 1500+ mile trip last week through the Siskiyous and the Willamette
River Valley of Oregon went off flawlessly, the '93 100CSQ worked like a
dream.

At times that dream was more like one of those where you are trying to force
yourself to wake up before the cannibal ghouls drag you into an open grave
and devour your flesh -- but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After my wife's confusion over the central locking behavior (which we
figured out with the list's help, and which worked flawlessly), we took the
owner's manual (you can't RFTM if you don't have TFM to R) in the event of
other curiosities.  A good thing too.

North of Yreka, where the road starts to climb, I noticed that the outside
temperature started dropping.  We'd been comfortably ensconced at about 70
degrees for the whole trip, in spite of the outside sensor reading 40, then
39, then 38 degrees.  I had been making really great time, until I happened
to notice that the outside temp dropped to 35 degrees.

And all hell broke loose inside the car.  It was as if someone had set off a
smoke grenade in the interior -- the windows became opaque almost
immediately, with only a very small patch right in front of me (fortunately)
to peer out of.  Not something you want to have happen suddenly and without
warning at 80 mph on a winding mountain road.  

Because I'm not only a frood who knows where his towel is but *also* one who
keeps extra towels on hand at all times, I took one of the small hand towels
we'd placed in the front seat and wiped the window for visibility, but it
wasn't getting better.  I slowed significantly as I wiped the windows (we
were climbing the foot of Mt. Shasta at the time), asking my poor wife to
get the manual out of the glovebox.

The glovebox wouldn't open.

She jiggled it, wiggled it, and pried it.

The lock cylinder fell out.

Fortunately, a few miles later, we pulled off the side of the road so that
the children could have a snowball fight.  They had great fun, ganging up on
each other, ganging up on me, yelping about cold hands as they scooped up
the light, dry snow and hurled it at one another.

I reinserted the lock cylinder, opened the glovebox, and extracted TFM.
Yes, I'd been pushing the right buttons to invoke defrosting.  Yes, the A/C
compressor comes on automatically when you press the defrost icon, and you
can tell it's on because of the snowflake icon on the climate control.  And
then, sure enough, there it is in black and white: on cars with automatic
climate control (such as ours), the A/C compressor automatically shuts off
at 35 degrees F *AND CANNOT BE RESTARTED, EVEN BY PRESSING THE COMPRESSOR
BUTTON* until the temperature climbs (in practice, till it reaches nearly 40
degrees).

So... 

How do I defeat this insanity?  We *are* moving to Oregon over the next 2-3
months and will therefore have occasion to drive the car often in sub-35
degree weather, and while we've discovered a workaround (drop the windows at
75+ mph for ten seconds or so to chill the interior, then close back up), I
hate this.  It comes pretty close to making the car undrivable when it
happens, though being able to expect it helps immensely with preparation
(dishtowels and/or squeegees).  But if anybody had offered me and my wife
ten bucks for the Audi and a ride to a used-car lot on Saturday the 18th...
well, somebody might have picked up a really great car for cheap.  I hate
most "we're smarter than you" details on most modern cars, and in particular
I dislike the climate controls on any car that doesn't let me control vent
output, temperature, A/C compressor, and fan individually and exactly... but
this just crossed the Rubicon for me.

There's gotta be a wire we can cut or jumper or a relay we can fiddle,
right?  Or is there some other way to deal with this, short of selling the
car?

--Scott Fisher
  Somewhere between Sunnyvale, CA and Tualatin, OR
  1983 Audi CGT *fully manual A-C/heat/defrost controls*
  1993 Audi 100CSQ (don't get me started)