Need Answers for COLD WEATHER DRIVING.....thanks!

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rgalvinmi

Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2015
Messages
22
I have owned my I-miev since August. I bought mine with NO REMOTE.

What I have noticed is it takes about 15 minutes of "driving" before the air becomes "warm/hot"...? Does that seem about right?

A question....if you go out to the garage and "start/ready" it and leave the fan "off"...and come back in the house for 15 minutes, will the air flow "be warm/hot" when you go back out to turn the heat on?

I sat in the driveway with it "running" with the HOT HEAT blowing FULL BLOWN tonight when I got home for 10 minutes and the range did NOT go down a mile....... If I kept it running with the FULL HIGH HEAT ON, how long does it take for a "mile" to drop off the range? Is it "safe" to leave it running when you are "not" driving? Like if you sit somewhere for half an hour, is it bad for it (radio on, heat on, etc....)?

Thanks! Bob
 
Bob, my two-cents' worth -
1. Seems to me the heater takes less than five minutes to pump out warm air. Never timed it, but undoubtedly a function of ambient air temperature.
2. If you're going to go out into the garage and 'start' the car and turn on the heater anyway, you might as well turn on the fan and the seat heater and be toasty warm when you get in.
3. If I recall, RR takes roughly a 20% hit when you turn the heater on while you're driving. If you're standing still, the algorithm might not correct until you get going again - I don't know. Sitting with the car not moving but all systems ON simply depletes your battery, but I can't think of any harm being done.

Rather sad that so many Remotes get 'misplaced' when lease vehicles are returned and then get turned over at auctions.

(BTW, Bob, I erased your duplicate post on the other thread.)
 
Joe lives where it seldom gets cold . . . . not that we see lots of really cold weather here, but I find when I need the heater, it takes more like 10 minutes to get any meaningful heat. I would also guess the heater takes more than 20% of your range away - Something closer to 35 to 40% depending on how cold it is outside and how warm you try to keep it inside. No matter what you do though, it's never going to be like a 'normal' car which has tons of waste heat to use keeping the cabin warm

With no remote to preheat the car before you leave, I would suggest you preheat the car in the garage with a 1500 watt, 120 volt utility household heater for 20 or 30 minutes. Then when you leave and turn on the heater in the recirculate mode, you'll be moving around the preheated air already in the car and you won't notice the time delay in heating the water for the heating system. For short trips, you won't see much of a range hit that way

But . . . . if you live where it gets really cold and you plan to keep the car for several years, adding a diesel heater is the way to go - Quick, efficient cheap heat which more closely mimics what you're used to in a 'normal' car

As to sitting in the car with it running and using whatever accessories you need, we do that all the time. I stay in the car with th A/C running for half an hour or more while the wife is shopping many times. Every 15 or 20 minutes, I see a mile of range go away - I would think it would be about half that long if you're running the heater. The A/C is much more efficient and doesn't reduce the range nearly as much as the heater does

Don
 
If you put the car in start ready mode and leave the fan off the heater will not heat the coolant. You need the temp selector in the heating range and you need the fan on at least one click for the heater to create heat.

You can see the heater current draw on the dash in the amp meter dial. It pulses on and off as the coolant is heated.

In my car i get heat in about one minute coming out of the vents at about zero deg C outside air temp, Its pretty fast. But the car interior does take awhile to heat up. If you press the max button you get max heat and max fan works great but eats range.

I think its fair to say that the heat is pretty quick but not as powerful as in an ice car hence the impression that it takes longer to heat the car. In an ice car you can set the temp selector to low or mid range and still get alot of heat. In the imiev alot of heat means hitting the max button.

With my diesel heater the ramp up time for the heater is noticeably longer then the electric something like 5 minutes but it gets very hot and stays hot for as long as you like. As don said you get an ice car heating experience with a diesel heater.

Don.....
 
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