Heating Problems

[lininjim]

Still having problems with the car.

Hubby drove his four miles to work this morning and as usual lately asked for temperature at 30 degrees. Previously the fan has come on and blown away like mad, and in a short time he has had hot air.

Today, no major fan blowing and no hot air.

The question is, does the climate control produce hot air or should he just manually set the temperature and let the climate control maintain the temperature once it is there?

Also, when I rang him the phone didn't ring through the Speakers and didn't bring up my number. He checked his phone wasn't set to silent.

[Braindead]

Like I said before, mine produces hot air after about a mile. I leave it set at 20 degrees or so and set to auto.

It only starts blowing when there is hot air available then it blows quite hard until up to temperature then drops down again. Before that it doesn't blow...or if it does, it's very low.

The temp you set is the temp you want the cabin to be not the temp of the air coming in. In theory, if you set it to 30 it will keep banging hot air into the car unitl the cabin gets to 30 degrees.

So there is no advantage to having the temp set to 30 unless you actually want the cabin at that temperature. In fact there is a disadvantage - the car has to keep the engine running to get hot air, so if you ask for a very high temperature, the engine will stay on and the fuel consumption will go up.

[PaulT]

Hubby drove his four miles to work this morning and as usual lately asked for temperature at 30 degrees. Previously the fan has come on and blown away like mad, and in a short time he has had hot air.

Today, no major fan blowing and no hot air.

Was it noticeably colder when you started? It was cold here overnight. If it has anything in common with a modern petrol-engined car you won't get warm air until the engine is warm, as that would cause the cold engine to stay cooler for longer (you are pumping heat away from the engine into the cabin ...).

Cheers

Paul.

[gasman]

I would agree with most of the replies so far. When the car is cold the engine is much less efficient due to condensation of fuel vapour on the walls of the cold cylinders. Hence the car has to run with a rich mixture which is not only inefficient but also leads to a higher proportion of unburnt fuel leaving via the exhaust. This is why the prius has an auxilliary heater to speed up engine warming when cold. It is particulalry important in a hybrid because the engine does not neccesarily run continuously , thus potentially prolonging the warm up time. This would be especially noticeable if you were driving in slow traffic. I suspect that most prius' are at their best on runs of 10 miles or more as this will increase the proprtion of time spent running at maximum efficiency.

This problem would be theoretically less of a problem in a diesel hybrid because diesel does not condense on cold cylinders. However, in practice the cold engine produces more friction so a solution is still needed. My Audi A2 diesel has a diesel powered auxilliary heater called an 'erbspacher' which speeds up heating in winter - the downside being that it uses noticeably more fuel in cold weather ( drops by about 3 mpg). Even with this device it takes 5 miles to reach 60 degrees engine temperature so the heater is rarely effective and will only start to blow hard when it can spare the heat.

[Braindead]

gasman, I think diesels are more thermally efficient and run at lower temps. My last car was a Nissan diesel and it took around 3 miles till I got heat out of the vents and the whole six mile trip to work to get the cabin warm. All the petrol cars I've owned warmed much quicker. Having said that, the Prius is the quickest of the lot to warm up. It's designed for efficency to doesn't start taking heat from the engine till it's up to a reasonable temp.....about a mile on mine.

[lininjim]

Unfortunately mine isn't even hot after a run to Derby, which is about 12 miles.

I have it booked in for next Tuesday, when they can tell me why the phone doesn't ring through the speaker anymore as well.

[Braindead]

That's a shame. Sending it back to Inchcape Derby? Keep us posted....interested to hear how they get on.

Good luck

[Braindead]

Any progress with the heater?

It occurs to me, if you think your Blue Tooth is not working correctly and Inchcape say it is then put a post here and on the other Prius forum and see if other folks Blue Tooth works as you think it should....just a thought.

[GT4 BOOSTER]

for instant warm heat put a summer thermostat in , for later really hot heat put a winter thermostat in . even tie a piece of flat board in front of the radiator to block out the wind will get you all heated up no problems.

[lininjim]

Okay, the car went in to Inchcape for a couple of days. The bluetooth seems to sound a lot better but it appears that it should never have rung through the speaker!!!

According to members on the yahoo prius forums, nobody else's ever has either. Spooky. Maybe because the car was bought with money left when my mum died then my mum is haunting it?

The heater is a lot better now, some internal sensor has been changed and we can feel the difference.

We got the sounder for the reversing sensors moved to the front of the car so we can hear it now. Unfortunately the dashboard is a bit misaligned due to excess play in the clips so they are ordering a new dashboard for us next week.

We have had some bad moments with Inchcape, mainly due to the wrong people getting involved and promising us things they forget to deliver. There are some genuinely nice and helpful people there who are aware of their bad reputation and striving to improve it.

I am all for giving them a chance; so far I have the time and the patience for it. We go back next Wednesday for the dashboard to be swapped, let's hope they fulfil their promise of a decent courtesy car, not a death-trap dirty Yaris with no petrol, and that they start work on it straight away, not get around to it at 2 in the afternoon.

[lininjim]

sorry, good old Opera, doesn't like Fast Reply.

Sorry, I can't seem to delete this one so I removed the content.

BTW I got my £700 Grant cheque through today.

Edited October 22, 2004 by lininjim

[Braindead]

What a sorry mess!

Thanks for letting us all know. Soooooooo...when my 20k service comes up I'm driving up to Ilkeston and getting it done by Ron Brookes.

Yep, I'm prepared to travel 15 miles extra to get a decent job done.

Bl**dy good result on the grant! :D

[lininjim]

We've recently had to take the car in for a couple of niggles, one of which was neither urgent nor vital, the other more so.

In both cases, Inchcape at Derby fitted me in at my convenience, lent me a courtesy car and completed the work speedily. The car was well looked after and they even treated a scuff we got on the wing from some moronic kids throwing stuff on the bypass.

No cost, no fuss, no complaints.

These people know they have an uphill battle to rectify their reputation but in my eyes they are providing a service to be proud of. How much of this is down to their Customer Service Manager, Will Johnson, and how much is down to them wanting their pride back I don't know, but I am happy to deal with them.

I can't comment on their past history because I wasn't a Toyota customer back then but so far so good.

[Braindead]

Perhaps I should give them another chance.

Maybe I'll ask for Mr Johnson when I book in for my 20K service early next year and point out that it's a second (and last) chance.

[lininjim]

Perhaps I should give them another chance.

Maybe I'll ask for Mr Johnson when I book in for my 20K service early next year and point out that it's a second (and last) chance.

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I would give Will a call and explain what problems you've had and what you expect. He is a genuinely nice chap who wants happier customers and a better Inchcape Derby. I'm not sure if Will should really be involved in servicing and stuff but when he knows you have had a bad experience in the past (or experiences) I'm sure he will go out of his way to try and win you back, so to speak.