Scirocco Central

Absolutely loving the viper roc after one month but my goodness does the heater take AGES to warm up. I didnt expect this from a VW. My old Korean car warmed up in half the time. Disappointed at this now the weather is bitterly cold at times. Not what id call progress......

Mine is pretty quick ?

My 170 diesel is blowing warm air well within 1 mile from cold.

I'll admit I know nothing about cars, but presumably heating is usually done via the heat generated from the engine? Is that usual? Would have thought a small heating element to get things going would be more normal - as having sat in a friend's BMW estate that blasted red hot air right from ignition made me think cars had separate heating systems, but I'm thinking that is the exception rather than the rule.

Its quite normal for a 1.4TSi 160ps.

Had this issue with VW Technical a year ago. They stated it was all normal. It turned out to be the waxstat had failed (open thermostat) but they wouldn't listen despite the top & bottom radiator coolant hoses being the same temperature.

I was frozen in the car all the time last winter until it was fixed, even on the motorway, the heat was hardly there. And an icing windscreen on the motorway was not funny. Waxstat was replaced on my instance. Hey presto, some heat at least. Here's the little blighter that has been an issue, the bronze unit (waxstat) in the centre of the 3 thermostat components. (160PS has two thermostats - Head at 80'C and Block at 95'C). The one here is the 80'C head thermostat
I've just changed the waxstat again as the coolant temp was rolling back 10'C during the warm-up between 50'C & 90'C if my Scirocco stopped at junctions. The temperature roll-back "appears" to have been cured by the new waxstat but the temperature warm up times so far show no change to the previous replacement waxstat. Later this week with near 0'C early mornings will confirm. But the heating is now warmer as I would expect.

There is a clear indication if the waxstat has gone. The top and bottom radiator hoses (in the gap between the airfiler and engine block) are the same temp. If its working properly, the top radiator hose should be difficult to hold cos of its temperature and the bottom is usually stone cold. The other is the temperature rolling back by 10'C - 15'C on the gauge during warm-up.

The 160PS shows all the characteristics of being over cooled in urban driving or light motroway cruising but it needs it if you hammer it.

Here are figures based on the replaced waxstat. It will depend very much on the outside air temp. and the way you drive..........

In Summer mornings at say 15'C air temp., if you drive an urban drive from cold start, the engine takes 4 & 5 mins to 50'C indicated and 90'C in anything between 8 & 11 mins.

In Winter at say 5'C air temp., its 6 to 8 mins to 50'C and 12 to 16 mins to acheive 90'C. The oil takes 30mins to reach working temp.

(Urban drive - 20mph - 30mph with numerous stops.)

Pick your temp.... Period of readings is late January'10 to October'10. These are the same drive/route to work with no heavy traffic to change the drive for each set of daily readings.
.................................

If you drive it fast from cold..... then it becomes more typical...........

In Summer at 20'C, a fast drive from cold will acheive 50'C inside 2mins and 90'C by 3 mins.
In Winter at 5'C is 3mins to 50'c bordering on 4 mins and 6 to 7 mins to acheive 90'C on the temp dial.

(Fast is 2 mins at 30mph driving, not coasting, followed by 70 mph for 4 mins)

Pick your temp.... again late January'10 to October'10
.....................

The heater can be supplemented by two methods but both are costly.
Fit a Webasto heater which the Germans seem to like.
Or there is possibly a VW 1Kw electrical heater which is linked to the engine ECU to turn it off when the coolant is warm enough (not investigated the mod's suitatbility for the Scirocco). Just priced up th eheater as nearly £400 alone. I'm guessing but may be the BMW has this typre heater fitted.

The alternative is an engine re-map as I believe the warm-up characteristics change....

C.

viperoc wrote:Absolutely loving the viper roc after one month but my goodness does the heater take AGES to warm up. I didnt expect this from a VW. My old Korean car warmed up in half the time. Disappointed at this now the weather is bitterly cold at times. Not what id call progress......

Ive noticed this in my Roc too! Can take a good 10/15mins to start blowing warm air!

Hi ViperRoc

Both RW1 and I have near identical cars. He has had a bad run of luck with his heater. Whereas my heating system (duel-zone climate control) has worked perfectly from new. It gives me heat after only a few mins of driving.

I know this doesn't help but I wanted to point out that it's not a problem all 1.4 TSI 160ps cars suffer from.

Gary

This is pretty popular here in Finland.



http://www.defa.com/heating4.php3?aid=6&lang=3&ndid=

A big engine will take longer to heat. It's not got a lot to do with progress, rather you should think how long it takes to heat a full kettle, v a single cup of water in a kettle. The bigger the engine block, the more water/coolant to cool it. Hence why bigger engines take longer to heat up.


My Toyota has a special exaust heating system for cold morning starts. Doesnt work worth as fu*k...


Also without preaching too much. If your morning journey isn't long enough to allow your car to heat up, then maybe you should be walking to work.


Lazy arse..

Something else to take into account is the heat is the waist product of burning fuel so the more efficient an engine is the less heat is produced.
This problem came up at the beginning of last winter, I believe Kenlow makes a mains heater that is fitted to the engine which you switch on 10 minuets before you go out so you have a hot engine from the off, the only draw back is if you cant get the car close to the house to plug it in.

peter.vw wrote:Something else to take into account is the heat is the waist product of burning fuel so the more efficient an engine is the less heat is produced.
This problem came up at the beginning of last winter, I believe Kenlow makes a mains heater that is fitted to the engine which you switch on 10 minuets before you go out so you have a hot engine from the off, the only draw back is if you cant get the car close to the house to plug it in.

Or if you forget to unplug it before your drive off

My 1.4 seems to be warming up a lot quicker this winter. Certainly getting some heat out just after the 1 mile mark. More like 2 or 3 miles last winter.

I must admit I tend not to turn the heater on till the temperature gauge reaches 90 unless I have ice on the widescreen and that can be 10 miles.
Interesting I have noticed that there is not a lot of difference between summer and winter warm up times as I don’t use the heater and take heat out of the engine system.

Tried turning my heater off a couple of times this week and it made no difference.

Tonight at 0'C to -2'C air temp, two trips of 40 mins at 30 - 40 mph and the heat was luke warm at best. I know it blends but fans on 4th speed all the time if in auto. When it first acheived 90'C indicated, stopped 5 mins later by traffic lights and the gauge immediately dropped back to 75'C within about 5 seconds. Drove again and it immediately went back upto 90'C, stopped again after another 5mins and it dropped back again to 75'C quickly. Only until the oil got past 60'C did it hold the coolant temp.. After 40mins the oil temp never made it past 75'C on each journey, where as it would normally be between 85'C & 90'C. Something wrong and its getting worse

Been fine since it was first fixed last January until end of September when something happened during a journey and the heating suddenly went cooler.

- Little or no pressure in the header tank - tank cap changed - no change.
- No leaks
- Thermostat for cylinder head circuit changed last week (that's the heating circuit to the cabin)
- Coolant is at 50%/50% so that's the right strength.
- Pipes into the heat exchanger are onlyt luke warm so the heat output is reflecting what is going in from the engine
.. ie. the aircon/heater is not the cause of lack of heat as it has no real heat to play with.
- Top radiator hose is luke warm rahter than stinging hot.
- Fuel consumtion is slightly higher ~ 2mpg ish.
- No engine or Climatronic fault codes stored.

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

C.

You have got to be on the right trail RW with replacing the stat its the only answer sounds like you been unlucky or is there a faulty batch of stats made for the 1.4.

Wax stats tend to become weaker (open early) if they get cooked, this could happen in the summer time after a fast run. On your engine you have and electric water pump that runs when the engine is switched off along with the fans (I belive) to dissipate the heat.
Could it be that the electic water pump is not running at shut off so cooking the stat?

The engine never been hot at shut off. Its always surprised me how cool it is, considering the power it develops. Even if stopped at a service station on the motorway its a cool one.

When the dealer changed the thermostat to the cylinder head circuit (80'C) last January, the fans did start to lazily turn but no power speed. They don't even do that now for similar air temps.

That said, a SEAT 1.4TSi with the same engine came into a dealer in Carlisle last winter with the owner complaining the heater wasn't working. When examined, they found it had no coolant! The owner had kerb it and manage to knock off the lower radiator connection somehow. The owner after the incident continued to drive the car for two days until the lack of heating made him take the car in to be looked at.

Its a process of elimination now. Will consider the coolant electric motor but it's had to failed at 0 miles as no hard driving was done at that stage due running in and I had already noted how cool it ran from new, even after the 80'C thermostat was replaced. VW Technical aren't much help as they believe it is normal and so have blocked any warranty work.

C.

You don’t have to have thrash it to get a rise in temperature the fact the engine has stopped running means the mechanical water pump has stopped, the heat will build up because the water has stopped moving, It’s at this point the coolant would boil if it was not for the fact the rad cap maintains about 14 pound presser so raising the boiling point, like in a pressure cooker.
If the pump does not kick in the stat is the one to get this rise in heat.
Also is the temperature gauge telling you the truth, telling you its colder than it is.
The dealer has got to sort this for you under warranty if you could get it on a rolling road and find some way of checking temperature independent of the car it would help but you should not have to do that.
I cant see that a poorly working heater is normal.
Good luck

Guys, Im overwhelmed by the detail of the responses so far- wow! Unfortunatelyt appears there isnt a simple/ clear cut answer...

Perhaps to add to the detail of my grievance, here's a typical morning scenario:

I start the car; drive the first 2-3 miles feeling (VERY) cold, turn the manual temp knob to full (I think that 27 deg) the fan to 3 when the temp guage shows 90 degrees (Ive learnt theres no point trying to warm up before that point)the heater is now properly warm. Within minutes the car is now warm enough so I turn the temp to 22 and the fan to 2 and it does NOT cool down at all. Thats 5 degrees differnce but it hasnt made any difference!! So the car is now stuffy and too warm. It remains stuffy unless I then turn the temp down to about 17. Then once it cools down, its back up to about 19 after which I find it comfortable.... (phew....! you still with me?)

What is annoying me is the clear lack of controlability and the wild swings between cold, hot and then cold again, despite subtle adjustments. Having read your posts, no 2 rocs appear the same...in this day and age??... unbelievable!! Is this really a VW or am I driving a FIAT from the early 70's???

I suspect those of you with climate control have it much better- perhaps they are making me suffer for being stingy and not going for a GT...??

I will contact the dealer and VW about this, it isnt what I expect of a quality make! I'll let you know how I get on.

In the meantime, thanks guys. Still love the car.......

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

I cannot comment on the scirocco as yet but having had a Mkv Golf for the last 3 years id say its the only major complaint i have
The heater in our Golf is diabolical
It takes an age to warm up and dont try the old tried and tested approach of starting your car for a few minutes whilst scraping the Windscreen hoping the interior will heat up as it wont

We have found you have to actually drive the Golf for at least 5 Minutes for the heater to kick in
Ive ran the engine on idle for upto 20 minutes with no heat you have to actually move the car to get it to kick in

I did notice that Volkswagen offers auxiliary heating fitment at an extra cost i think its all a big con if other manufacturers can get their heaters to work on idle in a matter of a minute or so why cant VW?
Theres no excuse really

Id also add that when it does kick in at around 26 on the heater control its all or nothing when it gets too hot if you back it down once you get past 22 it goes stone cold!!
Not a lot of point making it variable really when its either all or nothing

Jodie

Trix- I think what you are saying is 'patience dear boy, patience...'

Thanks- I will try that and report back.