Poor Heater.

[rjm]

I have an 08 diesel yaris.The heater is a joke.It takes 7 miles to get mild heat from it .In this cold weather you need a warm coat .Even with a hot engine.my toyota dealer checked the heater out last march in its service and told me its all ok? that because its a diesel it takes longer to warm up? my transit van is hot within 2 miles...thats diesel! Nearly due for another service..any idea whats wrong??

[ccvrs]

I have an 08 diesel yaris.The heater is a joke.It takes 7 miles to get mild heat from it .In this cold weather you need a warm coat .Even with a hot engine.my toyota dealer checked the heater out last march in its service and told me its all ok? that because its a diesel it takes longer to warm up? my transit van is hot within 2 miles...thats diesel! Nearly due for another service..any idea whats wrong??

It's no help but my 07 diesel is the same, 10 miles to get warm, worse in this weather.

[rjm]

I have an 08 diesel yaris.The heater is a joke.It takes 7 miles to get mild heat from it .In this cold weather you need a warm coat .Even with a hot engine.my toyota dealer checked the heater out last march in its service and told me its all ok? that because its a diesel it takes longer to warm up? my transit van is hot within 2 miles...thats diesel! Nearly due for another service..any idea whats wrong??

It's no help but my 07 diesel is the same, 10 miles to get warm, worse in this weather.

surely that cant be right?

[Madasafish]

My 03 diesel takes 1 mile to puff out a little warm air.

Modern diesles are so efficient they generate little surplus heat.

I switch off the blower when it's cold until the engine has warmed a little.

It's a well known issue with diesels - ALL modern ones.

You could have specified an extra heater using fuel... iirc it was £1k or so..

I am sorry about my lack of sympathy but when I buy a car I do some research. Diesel heaters in cold weather have been well known for the past 15 years after Audi introduced their PD engine in c 1995 and Citroen their HDI engine in 1998...

[carlowlad]

It's a pain alright. I've had to block my radiator completely to get any heat out of it lately. Bear in mind that i don't go over 100kph. It also still takes a while to warm up but is quicker all the same.

If you want you can stick a sheet of cardboard in front of your radiator. Open the bonnet and see if there is room to get a piece in there. It may not even need anything to hold it in place. Start with a 50% block and take it from there. Also, when the

weather gets warmer you'll need to keep an eye on the temp if you have blocked by more than 50%. But under 50% you shouldn't have a problem. Unless you give it welly and are at motorway speeds all day.

This grille blocking thing isn't crazy either. The peugeot 308hdi has one as an optional accessory if you frequently drive in cold weather. The entire lower grille gets covered over with a rather stylish insert.

[rjm]

My 03 diesel takes 1 mile to puff out a little warm air.

Modern diesles are so efficient they generate little surplus heat.

I switch off the blower when it's cold until the engine has warmed a little.

It's a well known issue with diesels - ALL modern ones.

You could have specified an extra heater using fuel... iirc it was £1k or so..

I am sorry about my lack of sympathy but when I buy a car I do some research. Diesel heaters in cold weather have been well known for the past 15 years after Audi introduced their PD engine in c 1995 and Citroen their HDI engine in 1998...

thanks.i did research and missed this one..my transits modern.thats fine.

[rjm]

It's a pain alright. I've had to block my radiator completely to get any heat out of it lately. Bear in mind that i don't go over 100kph. It also still takes a while to warm up but is quicker all the same.

If you want you can stick a sheet of cardboard in front of your radiator. Open the bonnet and see if there is room to get a piece in there. It may not even need anything to hold it in place. Start with a 50% block and take it from there. Also, when the

weather gets warmer you'll need to keep an eye on the temp if you have blocked by more than 50%. But under 50% you shouldn't have a problem. Unless you give it welly and are at motorway speeds all day.

This grille blocking thing isn't crazy either. The peugeot 308hdi has one as an optional accessory if you frequently drive in cold weather. The entire lower grille gets covered over with a rather stylish insert.

thanks but i dont want to cause problems and void the garentee.cheers.

[DONFRAMAC]

I bought a new Yaris D-4D in '53, and even in summer, it took 20 miles to reach full operating temperature, at A road speeds, plus some. It is just a diesel thing.

My present petrol Fiesta is very cold and fuel-hungry in this weather, and the MPG is terrible. I am seriously thinking of using a radiator blind. One thing, I must get out of the habit of clearing the windows of mist by the electric front heater & rear heater. My wife uses a cloth on the front 3 windows, and gets moving fast, having used the heated rear element while scraping ice/snow off the outside. Using electric loads in winter is uneconomic, and getting moving fast, with the heater valved off speeds up the warm-up of the engine.

[BALIKBAYAN]

It's a pain alright. I've had to block my radiator completely to get any heat out of it lately. Bear in mind that i don't go over 100kph. It also still takes a while to warm up but is quicker all the same.

If you want you can stick a sheet of cardboard in front of your radiator. Open the bonnet and see if there is room to get a piece in there. It may not even need anything to hold it in place. Start with a 50% block and take it from there. Also, when the

weather gets warmer you'll need to keep an eye on the temp if you have blocked by more than 50%. But under 50% you shouldn't have a problem. Unless you give it welly and are at motorway speeds all day.

This grille blocking thing isn't crazy either. The peugeot 308hdi has one as an optional accessory if you frequently drive in cold weather. The entire lower grille gets covered over with a rather stylish insert.

That is an old way to get the engine warm. Many cars did that during the winters when I was a kid. Old Mercedeses from the 70's had also it as an accessory thing to block the grille.

[rjm]

It's a pain alright. I've had to block my radiator completely to get any heat out of it lately. Bear in mind that i don't go over 100kph. It also still takes a while to warm up but is quicker all the same.

If you want you can stick a sheet of cardboard in front of your radiator. Open the bonnet and see if there is room to get a piece in there. It may not even need anything to hold it in place. Start with a 50% block and take it from there. Also, when the

weather gets warmer you'll need to keep an eye on the temp if you have blocked by more than 50%. But under 50% you shouldn't have a problem. Unless you give it welly and are at motorway speeds all day.

This grille blocking thing isn't crazy either. The peugeot 308hdi has one as an optional accessory if you frequently drive in cold weather. The entire lower grille gets covered over with a rather stylish insert.

That is an old way to get the engine warm. Many cars did that during the winters when I was a kid. Old Mercedeses from the 70's had also it as an accessory thing to block the grille.

have just discovered a thing called a CAR BRA.Its available in canada.Costs about £150.It helps with heat up time and protects against stone chips.

[DanielzZz]

My '03 Yaris D4D (but with the 90hp diesel) warms up very slow too.

[Madasafish]

My 1946 Rover 16 had a fitted radiator muff which completely encased the radiator grille..(in the days when grilles were separate.. and had flaps which you could open and close - but you had to stop to do it.

You can still buy them for land rovers

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Land-Rover-Defender-...=item1e593aadaf

There were retractable radiator blinds sold in the 1960s..

http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/radiator-blinds.htm

[alfiejts]

I can't see radiator blinds really helping.

Modern cars have a thermostat that stops the colling water circulating through the radiator until they are warm anyway, so blocking off the flow of air through the radiator isn't going to have any beneficial effect as the coolant stays inside the core of the engine until it is hot...

The main reason for radiator blinds on older cars was to stop the "static" water freezing in the radiator before the advent of modern anti-freeze. Before electric cooling fans, cars needed larger front grills to allow enough cooling air in hot weather, but modern cars already have a much smaller front grill than cars of the 60s and 70s.

The reason that diesel cars take longer to warm up is because the engine is more efficient. Its "waste" energy that becomes heat, so diesel engines produce less waste heat than petrol engines. Its perfectly normal to expect a diesel engine to take 10 or 15 miles to fully warm up because the engine is so efficient and produces so little waste heat. Its not a particular Yaris or Toyota issue - its a generic fact with diesel engines.

As mentioned above, my Audi A3 has a separate heater unit that burns diesel fuel and produces warmth for the heater before the car engine warms up... I suspect such an option isn't available on many small diesels in the UK but is commonplace in colder countries....

Even though my wife's Yaris is a petrol, I've bought one of these heaters (below) and "cable tied" it under the drivers seat blowing warm air forwards into the footwell. She just plugs the cable into the cigarette lighter socket when she wants it on and pulls the cable out when its warm enough....

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...14&doy=30m9

http://www.discountelectronicsstore.co.uk/...-heater-cooler/

[BALIKBAYAN]

[

have just discovered a thing called a CAR BRA.Its available in canada.Costs about £150.It helps with heat up time and protects against stone chips.

I read about car bra some years ago, but I got the impression it only was for all the insects they have in the southern parts of USA.

[carlowlad]

I've added a grille block to my wifes (2008 diesel) car after she complained about it taking ages to warm up in this cold weather. Now it warms up quicker and provides a little more heat to the cabin. The thing about driving a diesel in this weather is that it is getting hardly any work so is losing a lot of heat. The grill block overcomes this problem and you'll have a nice warm engine that also will retain heat a little longer after parking up.

To anyone who thinks it doesn't work, i ask that you try it first. Start with about 75% blocked off in this weather. Trust me, it will work.

[ccvrs]

I've added a grille block to my wifes (2008 diesel) car after she complained about it taking ages to warm up in this cold weather. Now it warms up quicker and provides a little more heat to the cabin. The thing about driving a diesel in this weather is that it is getting hardly any work so is losing a lot of heat. The grill block overcomes this problem and you'll have a nice warm engine that also will retain heat a little longer after parking up.

To anyone who thinks it doesn't work, i ask that you try it first. Start with about 75% blocked off in this weather. Trust me, it will work.

On a car with no temperature gauge I don't think this is wise. I'd rather be cold.

[carlowlad]

Very true. But a 50% to 75% grille block on a diesel yaris in the current weather will not result in anything blowing up. Mainly because nobody in their right mind is going to drive too fast on snow and ice. Now, if you forget it's there and the weather picks up....then you will run into overheating problems, especially if you do motorway speeds. (Now that i think of it, does anyone know what temp the fan comes on at?)

But yeah, on a car with a warranty you're kind of stuck with what you've got.

Incidentally, the peugeot 308 has a grille block as an optional accessory if you drive in the snow a lot. The 308 manual says that it must be removed in temps above 10c and speeds above 120kph.

To the OP: You asked a question and i offered a solution. After that, it's up to you what to do.

[Madasafish]

Agree with Carlowlad above..

My partially blocked radiator has given 58mpg brim to brim which is far better than winter normal (about 54mpg). No overheating issues. Seems to warm up in 3/4 of the previous time.