Hi guys, 

I am new here so I would appreciate any help you may provide.

I recently bought a used Skoda Octavia mk2 here in Finland.

Never had a Skoda before, and I was curious if behavior of my climate control system is normal or faulty and requires some maintenance, it’s hard for me to tell due to lack of experience with Skoda so I thought maybe you can help me out.

So, my issue is that when I start driving in the morning (the engine is cold) it takes about 5 to 10 minutes of driving until hot air starts coming out of the vents, even though I am setting the temperature setting to max (red mark on the thermostat control knob). It’s quite annoying here in Finland especially now when temperature has dropped below zero degrees Celsius.

After 5-10 minutes of driving it seems to start heating well though. So I am really curious if this a faulty or rather normal behavior of the car.

Do you know how heating works in the climate control system? Does it take hot return from the engine cooling system or it has an independent electrical heater, or maybe combination of both? I guess if there is no electric heater that would explain why it takes so long for hot air to start coming out of the vents.

My issue is that it takes quite a while to defrost the windshield in the morning when engine was first started after the night without hot air blowing.

Could you please share your experience? Is this normal or should I rather get it to service shop for experts to take a look. Or maybe it’s something simple I can fix by myself?

Another thing (which I guess is unrelated and again might be just a specifics of the car but I still want to mention it here) is that to my taste air flow blowing to windshield out of the vents located at the vary top of dashboard isn’t really strong, even though I set flow control to max when trying to defrost the windshield. Could you please comment on this too?

Thank you 😊

Welcome.

 

I assume your car has no auxiliary heater so the coolant needs to get hot, heat the engine before opening the thermostat and allowing heat out of the heater.

 

If i am wrong someone will correct this. 

 

?

Is it a petrol engine, as i think a TDI would be taking even longer to let you get heat?

All depends on ambient temps. 

6 hours ago, AntonB said:

I guess if there is no electric heater that would explain why it takes so long for hot air to start coming out of the vents.

My issue is that it takes quite a while to defrost the windshield in the morning when engine was first started after the night without hot air blowing.

 

Yes, it takes a while for the coolant and oil to reach operating temperature. Once your coolant temperature gauge is near to 90C, the windscreen vents will be very effective.

If you can drive the car, this will warm the coolant faster than idleing the engine.

Thank you so much for the reply, guys, really appreciated.

Hi @Rooted, no, I don’t have any aux heater, but you question makes me wonder if I should get one for those cold winter mornings. Is there something you can recommend?

tnx

 

Not sure if this can be added later as an extra, better if car is equipped from factory.

It's a common issue for TDI's and TSI's that they get a bit late to warm up the engines...