How many of you have gone to your ice cube of a car in the morning and turned the engine on for a couple of minuets with the heater on full whack? I'm sure many of you are guilty of this, I certainly was!
But did you realise that doing so didn't really make much of a difference to the car? It was still cold inside for at least half the trip and you were on the edge of hypothermia. The trick to warm up your car faster is very counter intuitive, so firstly its best to explain how the car heater works for this secret to make sense.
Most cars have heater cores inside their dashboards. Hot liquid from the engine passes through the core which means hot air passing over it will pickup quite a bit of heat which in turn comes out of your vents. Just like the old radiators you had in your home.
So, to heat up your car faster you need to stop that heat loss. You won't heat up your oven with the door wide open will you?
To heat your car faster you want to turn the heater off and drive for a couple of minuets. This then traps the heat in the cars heating system, just like closing an oven door. After driving for a couple of minuets, you will notice that your engine temperature gauge is slowly starting to increase. This is when you can strip down and let all that lovely heat through your vents.
If your car has automatic climate control, its normal that the fan doesn't blow when you first start your cold car. This is because vehicle engineers already know this secret and have programmed in into your car.
However, don't be tempted to let your car idle with the heater off as this can damage your car and may soon be illegal. Idling forces your car to operate in a very inefficient and gas rich mode that in time degrades the engines performance and can reduce your mpg.
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