Hi all

 

My last few diesels (2 x Passat PD130s, currently Focus 2.0 TDCI) have all had electrical coolant heaters.

 

For the uninitiated, these are electrical heating elements that raise the engine coolant temp from stone cold to "slightly warm" in a short space of time - far more quickly than a diesel engine does.

This is handy in winter, when it means you have air that's just warm enough to clear windscreen & side windows without waiting too long.

(And yes, heated screens are good, I have one in the Focus, but it does nothing for frosty side windows....)

 

Does anyone know if the CR170 (pre-FL) Yeti has this ?

 

The exception to my first statement was my Mk4 Seat Ibiza - same PD130 engine as the Passats of the same era, but that didn't have one. Used to take forever to warm up from a frosty start (didn't warm at all at idle - took several miles of driving).

 

Cheers

There are two options. A PTC heater element in the heater box or a Webasto type coolant heater. There is no option of a glowplug type system as found on earlier diesels (including the MK4 Seat Ibiza).

Thanks.

I presume neither of those are standard ?

Correct, for the UK at least. We get no additional means of heating the coolant other than the engine. We cannot even spec the additional option.

I really don't understand the problem.

My diesel is producing warm air from the vents within 5 miles of home, even when temps were down to -6 last year. Car was kept in the road, without a cover. That was as quick as my both my Freelanders, one of which had the diesel heater, the other the electrical one.

Scenario is very cold, iced up, frosty starts.

On my Ibiza, which didn't have the coolant heater, I'd start the car, go round scraping ice off all the windows, get back in, and still have stone cold air - so no means of clearing internally misted windows, or all the remnants of ice on the outside. It would take several miles of driving for air to be warm enough to do this. And I'd be shivering my nuts off in the process!

It's worse on my drive home from work, where typically I spend the first few miles in urban crawl, so the engine does no work to warm itself up. And on my drive to work in the morning, the first part of journey is all downhill so again, no work for the engine.

 

On my Passats and Focus, which do/did have electrical coolant heaters - I have warm(ish) air in well under a minute from engine startup - enough to start clearing windows effectively and for me to shiver a bit less...

 

 

Granted, not the end of the world, but it's a feature I'll miss. At least when I get my Yeti it'll have heated seats to offset part of the problem!

The heated screen provides a useful safety margin.