heater warm up time

[viperoc]

Viper

I found my heater abit like you describe (no reaction then all of a sudden) when I first took delivery in Nov last year however I was treating it like the heating in my old car which was; summer cooling breeze, ambient or bl**dy hell I need warming up NOW!! not temperature (degree) specific like is in the roc.

So first off set it to 22-23 degrees which I find ample & not needing much if any alteration for the most part of the year (or your desired ambient temperature) & then leave it to do its thing If you turn it up to 27 then down to 19 then you are going to get major swings of temperature so if you don't want to be sat in 27 degree heat don't turn it up all the way
Also I found that it did settle down after a few months (not exactly sure how long but was certainly by the end of the cold period) & that the reaction became more gradual & noticeable so like everything it just needs abit of wearing in
Hope that helps

S

TRIX - it worked! No wild to-ing and fro-ing in temperature! Thanks very much.

Still takes ages to warm up though!!!

[trix]

glad you're sorted, at least you have the winter pack to get your bum toasty warm while the heater gets to temperature

S

[micke_011]

Having exactly the same problem as describe by RW, will have the car in next Friday - will be interesting to see what they have to say, but when I reported the problem (20 mins before any warm air blowing into the car) they replied it's normal..yeah, right.

There's really no point in turning the temp up any more than what you really want, as it won't go any faster..say you turn it to 27, it will still take as long for it to reach 22 as if you kept it at 22 to start with, and the drawback is the big variations as the electronics try to cope with the new settings as mentioned earlier.

[RW1]

Seems only one thing left is the other thermostat controlling the engine block circuit is stuck open???. Too cold to do it today.

C.

Finally changed out the other thermostat yesterday, the 95'C thermostat controlling the engine block coolant temperature. No change. Checked both thermostats for clearance to shut the plate valves when cold. Both shut tight without forcing the waxstat pin further into the waxstat body (cold retraction).

So it's not the thermostats.

Coolant is still not hot when upto running temperature on the dash dial and the oil temperature has peaked [VCDS shows it as 85'C]. Just very warm. And the heater's heat exchanger for the Climatronic is getting the hottest available I can find on the engine by feeling all the coolant hoses. But they are nowhere near 95'C if I hold the hoses without being stung by the heat.

@micke_011
How did you fair at the dealer's last Friday. Did they find anything?

C.

[skyblues11]

the roc is made in southern portugal, maybe that has something to do with it...

my colleague drives a deisel SEAT and she said the same. could it be a VAG thing?

[RW1]

Yeah, and they did the cold weather trials on the Equator with the Climatronic on max cool. lol.
Five minutes and a tick in the box!

It appears that most of the heat goes down the exhaust pipe, logging with VCDS. It is certainly an "odd" engine. As above with the SEAT Carlisle lack of coolant incident last winter.

The total amount of coolant is 5.60ltrs which isn't exceptional. So there's not much to heat up compared to any other engine when warming up, given the engine power output. What runs out when the thermstats are opened is about 0.80 ltrs.

VW used to boast about their toasty heaters. Maybe now it ought to be their freezing freezers!

BTW, drove a Polo recently, that heater was "normal". So maybe it's just this 160PS engine design.

C.

[Ryy]

lol. The tests on the equator would say something for the passenger window wanting to open when it's cold and the headlamp washers being stuck up.

Pfft.

[Caput Mortuum]

Hmm, I just checked with my salesman that at least the diesel engined Sciroccos that are sold in Finland have a built in electric heater element in the air con unit.
Do you guys with problems have the winter pack specced? It is specced as a default in all Finnish Sciroccos. I'm just trying to figure out if the electric heater element is part of the winter pack..

[RW1]

Mine is not Winter Pack Spec'd.

There are heaters in the VW technical documentation. Both a 240V engine warmer with socket to link up and an electrical Climotronic/Climatic 1Kw heater element that runs at two settings to reduce engine load when idling.

Different countries, different Winter Pack details so don't look at a UK Scirocco Winter Pack being the same as Finland Winter Pack necessarily.

C.

[peter.vw]

Sounds to me that who ever makes the heater/air con units has made the heater matrix to small or the water flow in the heater is not great enough, which ever way it is the heater is not up to the job

[RW1]

No hot coolant in the first place so a larger/smaller one will not work. The whole cooling system is not running hot. The problem is the engine does not heat up well unless driven on fast roads. Urban driving I do, does not load it enough to make the engine work and heat up quickly.

I've sat it at idle from a cold start and it just does not self warm up. The temp gauge doesn't move off the bottom point, even after 30 minutes.

Knocking off the heating so the Climatronic heat exchanger is not being sapped of heat makes no measureable difference to the warm up time nor does selecting recirc..

C.

[peter.vw]

You have gone down more or less the same route as me, I don’t use the heater till I have 90 on the gauge and that’s a good 5 miles of urban driving but I have noticed that summer or winter the distance is about the same before 90 is achieved.
Can see why they use electric heaters in colder countries, looks like well will have to put up with it

[viperoc]

Frankly this situation is a disgrace on a modern vehicle, never mind a modern VW. I have a 10 year old Honda people carrier and without fail, even in the current baltic temperatures, the heater will blow warm air within 5 mins of starting the engine. With the Scirocco I left the engine running for 20 mins the other day and it was still cold when I got in to drive off. Shockingly poor. I really am unhappy.....

[trix]

With the Scirocco I left the engine running for 20 mins the other day and it was still cold when I got in to drive off. Shockingly poor. I really am unhappy.....

To borrow Andy's well worded explanation from another thread..

and you have to drive it to warm the engine.

You also seem surprised by this?

Of course you do.

The engine is under no load when idling and as such is burning hardly any fuel, hence there is not a lot of heat generated.

This also means your oil takes ages to get up to temp and increases engine wear. . . .

Some of you really need to appreciate that they are just relatively basic cars, and have some more realistic expectations on how they will perform in these conditions.

[Ryy]

I'm sure it's bad practice to just put the engine on and leave it ticking over and push it to warm this and that etc from the off. I certainly wouldn't do this. I would happily get in and start the engine and continue for a minute or two clearing the driveway (as much as possible anyway), windows and lights from any snow. But only 10 minutes intro DRIVING would I expect to start feeling the fruits of the rocs (very warm imo) heating.

I think I heard it put "You wouldn't wake up and perform open heart surgery straight away".

[Andy-GTI]

It says in the manual to start the car and drive away,

VW has put this in owners manauls for well over 20 years.

[sashpe]

Really sorry if Im repeating as I couldn't go through the whole topic but I have found out the interior heats up faster if I put the heater at 17-18 that if I keep it at 22. Don't know if it is because of the Aux heater my car is supposed to have or the temp setting but after 5 min of gentle driving, I don't feel cold in the car (-5 C outside temp).

[RW1]

Yup, drive off been there for yonks, and their engines used to give toasty heat, but not this one.

Having gone round the 1.4TSi 160ps cooling system and now checked everything, nothing is operatinng incorrectly. Even got V50 turbo secondary coolant pump working yesterday which was the final system component to prove all is working normally (although not relevant to the warm-up).

Managed to replicate the heat not being extracted by the Climatronics heat exchanger (clamped the feed pipe as switching off the Climatronic was inconclusive on mine). Low & behold, the warm up times become the same as the summer timings yet its -5'C outside, not +15'C. So conclude the Climatronic heat exchanger if in use is sufficient to cool the engine during the warm-up phase and double the warm-up duration to 90'C indicated on the dash dial in urban type driving. ie. 18 mins instead of 9 mins.

And hence the engine temperature dropping back by upto 15'C, even when at 90'C on the dash dial when still not fully warmed up on the oil temperature. The Climatronic heat exchanger is extracting more heat from the coolant than the engine is generating at idle or low rpm driving in traffic.

This engine uses cylinder liners. I seem to remember reading somewhere that a cylinder liner type engine runs cooler than block bored engines????? But..........

Then I turned to the 1.4TSi turbo 122ps of the same design, same cylinder liner design, same thermostat arrangement ie. 2 controlling the cylinder head/car heater circuit and the other the cylinder block.

The 122PS engine is using higher temperature regulating thermostats.

.....................................................160PS.......122PS
Cylinder Head/Car Heating coolant circuit:... 80'C .........87'C
Cylinder Block coolant circuit:.................. 95'C ........ 105'C

So I wonder.....
Its an engine compromise set up to cope with summer and spirited driving, but in winter it suffers from over-cooling if lightly driven.

My engine warm-up is much better if driven at 40mph plus, than pottering in traffic at 10 - 25mph while warming up.

C.

[Joloke]

Myself and my other half had this conversation just before getting our second VW the Rocco
The heater in our Golf was diabolical and i have to agree with others sentiments that if other car manufacturers can manage it why cant Volkswagen?

My partners little Citroen C2 is a little hotbox
Even my classic Rover Mini i used to have was like siting around a log fire after a minute or two of idle and that heater was a 40 year old design!!
Ok i agree its not good just leaving a car idling but in these conditions i think people expect the heater to be up to temperature by the time they've de-iced the windows

and i dont think thats to much to ask?

In saying all of the above we could quiet honestly only site a few things we hadnt been happy about with our Golf

1: Poor fuel Consumption being a 1.6 automatic Scirocco is Diesel and DSG so problem solved
2: auto gearbox was aweful wouldnt climb hills Again DSG solved this
3. Poor heater Much better in Scirocco

We decided the build Quality of VW was worth putting up with a poor quality heater
As it happens with the pre heater the Scirocco heater doesnt take long to heat up anyway

I remember the original Sales Brocure for our Golf and the Owners manual kept trying to sell you the virtues of an Auxilary VW Heater
Smells of a money making Exersize put a garbage heater in as standard and extract large amounts of cash to get auxilary heating just to bring it up to "normal" standards other manufacturers give you for free

They dont mention these auxilery heaters any more in their advertising garb

Though im happy with the Roccos heating its still not right if cheap bargain basement cars can heat up quickly VW should be matching this not giving us the well it heats up after you drive for 5 minutes attitude

And dont get me started on windows rolling down on their own which we have to reset which shouldnt really happen in the first instant
Instead of putting the onus on us the customers they should really get their fingers out and get the little things right

That said no car is perfect and every single manufacturer has their own issues

Just unfortunate that at this time of year you expect something as simple as a heater to heat up quickly rarther than having a mind of its own and having to think about it first

Jodie

[viperoc]

With the Scirocco I left the engine running for 20 mins the other day and it was still cold when I got in to drive off. Shockingly poor. I really am unhappy.....

To borrow Andy's well worded explanation from another thread..

and you have to drive it to warm the engine.

You also seem surprised by this?

Of course you do.

The engine is under no load when idling and as such is burning hardly any fuel, hence there is not a lot of heat generated.

This also means your oil takes ages to get up to temp and increases engine wear. . . .

Some of you really need to appreciate that they are just relatively basic cars, and have some more realistic expectations on how they will perform in these conditions.

So why does a 10 year old Honda (and every other car Ive driven- most of them much more 'basic' than the Roc) warm after 5 minutes if idling??