Heating

[Bike Nut]

Hello all, how good is the heating system in the Prius?

I am considering the Prius as my next company car and while on call I sometimes have to wait in my car for upto and hour, in cold weather this can be an issue if the vehicle does not have a good heater. Does the heater only work when the vehicle has been moving and the petrol engine has been used?

Also when out on site in cold weather and returning to my vehicle, getting the heater on to warm my self up is important, is the heater effective?

Many thanks,

[Sagitar]

Hello all, how good is the heating system in the Prius?

I am considering the Prius as my next company car and while on call I sometimes have to wait in my car for upto and hour, in cold weather this can be an issue if the vehicle does not have a good heater. Does the heater only work when the vehicle has been moving and the petrol engine has been used?

Also when out on site in cold weather and returning to my vehicle, getting the heater on to warm my self up is important, is the heater effective?

Many thanks,

Google on "how does the Prius heater work" and you will find quite a lot of stuff on this from the colder parts of the U.S. and elsewhere.

I've only had mine for a couple of months so I can't comment directly, but it is one of the things I searched for before I bought the car. I live in the south of England so extended cold environment driving is not a major issue for me.

My impression is that the heater works in much the same way as with other cars, i.e. it draws heat from the ICE, but it does have some nice touches, like storing the engine cooling fluid in an insulated container so that the engine warms up more quickly on re-start.

[timberwolf]

A difficult question to answer, especially as no one has owned a Gen 3 Prius long enough to

have been through their first winter with it yet. It might help if you list a few cars that you've

owned and say how good or bad the heaters were?

My impression is that the heater works in much the same way as with other cars, i.e. it draws heat from the ICE, but it does have some nice touches, like storing the engine cooling fluid in an insulated container so that the engine warms up more quickly on re-start.

Thermos bottle wasn't available on the UK Prius and it was a Gen 2 feature. For the Gen 3,

the Prius gets a heat exchange system to reclaim some of the heat from the exhaust and therefore

helps to heat up the engine a bit quicker. I do wonder how the heat reclaim might affect heating up the

catalytic converters?

The heating system on both Gen 2 and Gen 3 includes electric heater elements (PTC??) and from

the engine coolant. Regardless of the heat source, the petrol engine will have to run a lot more

often in winter to provide the energy for heating.

[Dave R.]

A couple of observations on the Prius Gen III heater...

If you are sitting around "on call", then one benefit is that the petrol engine (ICE) will cut out & you'll be running on Battery power once stopped... until it needs to warm things up, or the main Battery goes flat.... at which point the petrol engine will automagically kick in to provide heat &/or electricity! So, arguably, the Prius should be more efficient than a more conventional car that would leave the petrol engine constantly ticking over.

One slight criticism is that my previus cars with Climate Control (VW and Volvo) were able to discretely maintain cabin temperature - I was never really aware of the heater.... everything was just "right". With the Prius, I feel that the Climate Control is not quite so subtle, so I feel the temperature fluctuating a bit more. That said, I don't really have a problem.

Final point - the early Gen III Prius brochures claimed "dual zone climate control" - not true! There's only one zone.

[Bike Nut]

Thanks for the response.

I am arranging a 3 day test drive within the next few weeks, so I will be able to test it out in the environment it will be used in. I will post my findings and a report on what I thought of the car a a whole.