Edit: meant to put 3-4 minutes not 3/4
In: Engineering
The car heater works on the heat of the engine – it “has to” heat the entire radiator to a decent temperature first (if you try to suck the air from it too quickly, you will literally cool the engine even more which you don’t want on a cold-start). The engine runs, heats the water, the water heats the air in your car.
You can *get* electric heaters, etc. for the car, they are usually stupidly pathetic (12V, often limited to only 10A on a cigarette lighter socket, is 120W) or aren’t something you can have running for more than a few minutes, when the engine has just started, or in cold conditions.
Basically, you sacrifice your heat for the first minute or two of operation to keep the engine running smoothly in cold conditions, then when it has an excess of heat it’s designed to give you that.
And anything that sucked the power from the engine in those first few minutes will hinder a cold-start and will, also, take a huge drain and leave you with a flat battery if you use it for more than a couple of minutes.
I used to have a Ford Mondeo (Fusion in the US, I believe). It used to have a coil-heater in the airvents. It could blow hot air immediately, but it was a draw on the battery, and even then it wouldn’t kick in immediately.
It was also notorious for failing and even starting fires.
I have a newer Ford Mondeo. It does not have that.
Manufacturers will tell you – the best way to warm up the car in cold conditions is to drive it normally, and not too much strain on it. Suffer that minute-or-two when you’ve just got in from the cold outside, and are now in a cold, but not windy, car. Because anything else will leave you with a flat battery, an engine that can’t crank, or a fire hazard.
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