The climate control in these cars is awful

[bmike]

It takes forever to heat up, recently I connected the Scangauge and the heat will not start to come up until the coolant hits 120 deg and it takes a long time to get there. I thought there was some sort of electric heater that kicks in before the coolant is ready, not in my car. Even when the engine is warm the climate control will not put the fan above 4-5 clicks. After an hour you start to cook, I finally set it down to 65 and there was cool air coming out of the upper vents but it was still blowing HOT air on my feet. It appears to me that they threw in this feature as an after thought with no real engineering. End rant.

 

[3waygeek]

I haven't noticed that -- I'm getting warmish air out of the top left & right vents only a couple minutes after starting the engine, before the coolant gauge has moved a hair. Of course, it's not quite as cold down here in Atlanta as it is up there in CT.

I ordered the cold weather package, which may have a different heater than the standard. Not that it matters so much, since the cold weather package includes heated front seats.

 

[oilbug]

You may want to have them check that out at the dealer, bmike; mine appears to work just fine, and I'm on my second European winter with it (so while I'm not in the wild white North, it still gets cold here - snowing today). I have the cold weather package, too, but I don't think it changed anything in the basic climate control system.

 

[JaivH]

I am in Saskatchewan, today it was -21C when I left the house, it was blowing warm after 3 min.

 

[bmike]

I am in Saskatchewan, today it was -21C when I left the house, it was blowing warm after 3 min.

Do you have climate control, and if you do how do you set it?

 

[JaivH]

I have both set to 21C.

When I left the house this morning it was -36C and it has warmed up to -25C, so it will be interesting to see how it starts and how long it takes to warm up.

Will post later.

 

[Joe_Meehan]

Diesels don't have much waste heat and it is that waste heat that is used to warm the cabin. Yea, my diesels warm slowly.

Many have tried partly blocking the radiator. Some have uses those foam tubes they play with at a swimming pool. I have not bothered yet.

 

[JaivH]

when I left work last night it was -28c. The car was unplugged all day (no plug in at work) and it started great and after driving for about 10 min it was blowing warm but never got hot. My whole trip home though only took about 15 min.

 

[gootie]

Bmike
The scangage may be reading trans temp.
The scangage can via the XGAGE section be coded to actually read your coolant and trans temp.
Would you consider a coolant preheater?