Heater Booster

[otisb]

Re: Heater Booster

I strongly suggest you confirm thermostat is working.

i hope so the car is only a month old!
but the heater is on the hotist setting all the time and it never gets that hot i need to turn it down.

[10:45PM]

Re: Heater Booster

thanks mate
i love the cdi and only had it for a month now but the heater dose take the pee i can drive for about 20mins b4 i get heat from it!
and the new face lift dont have a temp gauge on it
my LHD petrol heater is a lot better

Keep the heat on max but turn the fan down , better to have it on 1 or so until the engine and booster has had a chance to warm a bit,
Don't forget the cabin thermostat is disabled when the heat is on absolute max, where you want it.
Also don't forget the 451 suffers from heater memory loss ocassionally. To reset it on the go, slide the heat control from hot to cold and back again, or turn fan off and on again.

hanks for the info mate but is it still the same on the 451?

yeah but temperature when it's enabled seem to be different from 450 to 451

[teaganravetta]

Re: Heater Booster

wow very handy advice and pictures!! I didnt relise the booster was inside the car!! I will be investigating this weekend and see if mine is the same as the toaster style one over page!! I guess it's usefull to have but the amount of layers I wear when it's cold getting into a cold car doesnt seem to worry me as I dont feel it!!

[832ark]

Re: Heater Booster

so the 451 cdi has the booster as standard? and its switched on automatically? the heater in our cdi takes ages to warm up and when stationary it starts to blow cool air, once moving blows warm again. I had a cdi courtesy car a couple of weeks ago which did the same thing. The petrol courtesy car I had this week though was much better in the heater dept.

[10:45PM]

Re: Heater Booster

yes the 451 has it as standard
yes it's switched on automatically within the constraints already mentioned by me twice

My 451 diesel took a whole 6 minutes this morning to start producing quite noticable heat !!:p the display showed -6 outside!! - so that's good going I think, as mentioned I do start it off at fan position number 1 though.

Also don't forget you need to have the temp on absolute maximum to override the cabin thermostat completely, so it's constantly on without thermostatic control.
Also don't forget the 451 suffers from heat control memory loss, ocassionally you may have to cycle the heat control from max to min to max again

[10:45PM]

Re: Heater Booster

so the 451 cdi has the booster as standard? and its switched on automatically?

so you're another smart owner that didn't get an owners manual from new?? :p

[tolsen]

Re: Heater Booster

so the 451 cdi has the booster as standard? and its switched on automatically? the heater in our cdi takes ages to warm up and when stationary it starts to blow cool air, once moving blows warm again. I had a cdi courtesy car a couple of weeks ago which did the same thing. The petrol courtesy car I had this week though was much better in the heater dept.

Electric heater is switched on manually and but is controlled by glow plug controller. The controller only swithes power to heater when power is available. Both 450 and 451 Cdis suffer from the same poor cooling system design having great difficulty getting up to operating temperature due to too much heat being lost to radiator.

There are two major areas of fixable hot coolant leakage:

1) My restrictor plug adresses the coolant leak through a check valve in the thermostat bu increasing pressure differential over the thermosat such that the check valve slams shut. The higher pressure differential also increases flow of coolant through heater matrix hence more heat in cabin.

2) Expansion bottle. Coolant from heater matrix is piped to expansion tank. Expansion tank looses heat to the air around it but coolant is also leaked to radiator via a small check valve in bottom of expansion bottle. I believe it is feasable to blank off the check valve by inserting a suitably sized rod. Running some tests today and will report my findings soon.

I made a run in to Aberdeen this morning. Indicated outside temperature was down to - 18 C. The engine got up to operating temperature after 9 km of very slow driving. Too many punters out running on ice shod with summer tyres.

[832ark]

Re: Heater Booster

so you're another smart owner that didn't get an owners manual from new?? :p

Well, not from cover to cover. I shall dig it out tonight and have a look. Ours really does take ages to warm up, the other day it took somewhere between 30-40 mins of local driving and stop/start traffic.

[10:45PM]

Re: Heater Booster

Well, not from cover to cover. I shall dig it out tonight and have a look. Ours really does take ages to warm up, the other day it took somewhere between 30-40 mins of local driving and stop/start traffic.

and what fan setting do you have it on?

and do you have heat on max (as far as it'll go nearest the screen) or just the top temp (28?) setting ?

[832ark]

Re: Heater Booster

Generally have the heat rammed as far as it will go and the fan at 2, perhaps I'l try the fan at 1. If it wasn't for the heated seats we'd freeze to death!

[tolsen]

My heat boosting experiment

I siphoned out 7 dl of coolant from expansion tank such that water level (cold coolant) was level with top of radiator.

Purpose of the experiment:
1) Mainly to see if engine warms up faster as less coolant need be heated.
2) To confirm whether any heat is lost to radiator via valve at bottom of expansion tank.

Risks:
I assume there is a chance that air may enter system through above mentioned valve into radiator. This possibility can be verified by observing level in expansion tank.

Test result:
Engine came up to operating temperature (3 blobs indicating on my 450 Cdi) after 4 km of driving at 50 mph. Ambient temperature was -7 C.

You may not be able to repeat above good result unless you have a restrictor plug fitted.
I checked level upon returning to base. Coolant level had risen to 15 mm above the valve. Checked again after the car had cooled down to ambient temperature and confirmed level was same as when starting this experiment so no air (yet) in system.

[otisb]

Re: Heater Booster

don't forget the 451 suffers from heater memory loss ocassionally. To reset it on the go, slide the heat control from hot to cold and back again, or turn fan off and on again.

thanks doing this sorted the heat out

[10:45PM]

Re: Heater Booster

thanks doing this sorted the heat out

cool

err I mean hot :sun2:



It's an easier fix than taking it back to the dealer who won't be able to fix it

[otisb]

Re: Heater Booster

It's an easier fix than taking it back to the dealer who won't be able to fix it

yes thanks for your time telling us about this prob
:thanx: