The Heater Works Well

[burtandnancy]

I rarely use a heater in a car, but as we all know, it got a bit nippy here in SoCal, so I tried it out. I'm very impressed, works well, heats up quickly and the defroster did well too. I hope you people find the same where it gets real cold, where we read about things like BELOW zero. Whats that like?

[smark]

12 degree weather, takes a while to heat up. Its fine after that. wish I had heated seat!!!

[jwight]

I'll give it 6 or 7 out of 10; 30 degrees today, temp set at 80 and heater on recirculate, the car was warm but the air from the vents never got really super hot even after 30 minutes of driving.

[blackbeagle]

Car has been sitting outside all night. Tonight took 15 mile drive. It was 10 degrees outside. It took me about 15 minutes of driving before I could feel the heat. Not bad but not great either.

[sheureka]

I love my heated seats - sheureka

[GHammerly]

I think it works very well and could warm up even quicker by covering the lower inlet for the winter months.

[smart fortimo]

We haven't been below zero, but my commutes this week until today were 0-10*F with windchills down to -18*. But today... A Heat Wave... 15-20*!!!

The heater performs very well, even when it's down to zero. Along w/ seat heaters-- ahhh.

What worried me when starting at 0-5* was the sluggish starter. I wasn't sure it was going to get me going.

And the decreased MPG performance-- I'm heading to an all-time low average. I'll know when I fill again this weekend, but I only clicked 75 miles in the first 3 bars, and now up to 200 miles using 6 bars of guzzle.

[burtandnancy]

Your decreased fuel mileage may be due to wheel spin in all that ice up there. Got really cold down here today, clear, no clouds, extreme visability; about 55 at noon...

[fortow]

I don't know what some of you folks are doing but my smart starts delivering noticably warm air after about 3 minutes of driving and easily within 10 minutes the air is so hot on maximum setting that it needs to be turned down considerably.
Of course, I use manual mode and the revs are likely higher than those using auto mode. I am not driving in stop and go conditions. Also, I start driving almost immediately after starting, and don't turn the fan on for at least three minutes after starting to drive.
The heated seats are very warm too.

[vandenberg]

How about -17* (that's below zero) with a -33* windchill. The car was pretty stiff, but it started. I work night shift, so I'm always driving it when it is much colder out. It's warmed back up to the single digits again. I too have noticed that it takes quite awhile for it to put out some good heat. About 5-10 minutes of good driving. Once it warms up, it puts out some really good heat. I've had to play with the fan controls to vary the heat output though. Your feet tend to get cold if you direct too much heat up high. I either split it between defrost/vents, defrost/floor, or floor/vents depending how cold it is and whether I need to keep up with fogging up of the windows. The heated seats keep you toasty until things start to warm up. You can feel them even with a heavy parka on. I haven't had any defrosting issues at all though. The car clears up fairly quick. I use strictly winter only windshield washer fluid with de-icer which speeds up the de-icing/defrosting process in the morning.