BMW 328is

Anyone know if a BMW 328is will heat up without the engine on?

Reply to
bob
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Depends on how big a fire you build under it I guess.... ;-)

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 'New' frame in the works for '08. Some Canadian Bush Trip and Build Photos:
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Reply to
Mike Romain

what kind of question is that?

Reply to
jfrancis311

I'm not sure what exactly you're asking but the answer depends.

Can the engine generate heat while it is not running? no.

If you drive the car and then shut it off, will the temperature of the engine increase? quite possibly. the combustion chambers will be significantly hotter than the rest of the engine, and the temperature will equalize as it is cooling off, resulting in a brief period when the coolant temperature as indicated on the dash gauge will actually increase over its normal indication, if you leave the key on.

nate

Reply to
N8N

If I turn the heat on but not the engine, will the heat work?

Reply to
bob

No. The same answer applys to most production cars (though I'm not sure how hybrids generate heat). The heat is a byproduct of the engine running. The water pump moves the water through the heater core so even if the engine were warm the water in the heater core would cool off pretty quick.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B.

No. There is no car made in which this will work, except possibly a Model T or a VW bus with an aftermarket auxiliary gas heater.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Modern diesels often has diesel driven heaters. The engine produces so little excess heat that it is not sufficient to quickly heat the cabin.

My 2001 audi a6 2.5 tdi had such a heater which started automatically in cold weather to bring the coolant temp up quicker, which helped both cabin heat and the engine.

It also had a programmable timer and a radio remote that allowed me to turn it on half an hour before going to work, which was nice in the winter.

I think most premium diesels sold in Sweden now comes standard with diesel heaters.

Reply to
Thomas Tornblom

Why can't the battery simply power an electric heater?

Reply to
bob

snipped-for-privacy@coolgroups.com wrote in news:04c536fd-5608-4383-b7e3-a740f3d1c901 @p69g2000hsa.googlegroups.com:

Probably because electric (resistance) heaters are big energy hogs. Your battery would drain down in no time.

Reply to
Tegger

Let's say you want a 1200 watt electric heater, which is as much as a small space heater but a lot less than a than a typical auto heater. It's about

4,000 BTU/hr.

If you've got a 12V battery, you're talking about pulling a hundred amps out of the battery to get that 1200 watts of power. Figure a typical very large car battery is fifty amp hours, so you could run the heater for half an hour before totally exausting the battery under the best of conditions.

It takes a LOT of electricity to make heat. And correspondingly, there is a lot of leftover waste heat in most car engines. So heating off the engine coolant is a huge win all the way around.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Because it would drain the battery really quick without producing any usable amount of heat.

A normal space heater is around 1 kW or so, which amounts to about 20 headlight halogens. Think about how long the battery would last if you were to switch on that.

I have a wall connected heater that has selectable power, and I normally run it at 1.2kW, and on that setting it takes at least half an hour before the cab is anywhere comfortable. It can also run at

2kW, which I use if I want the heat quickly.
Reply to
Thomas Tornblom

Why not add another battery just for heating? Even if it gave just

15

minutes of heat, that would probably be enough to allow me to easily

scrape ice off my windows and drive off comfortably.

Also, why does my car's control panel look like it is heating when the

gas is off? Shouldn't it indicate it's not really heating? Do most

cars mislead people like this?

Reply to
bob

Battery technology would be one of the bigger reasons I see. A lead acid battery would be toast after you ran it down a half dozen times. You could do something with other battery types but then you are adding costs and weight to the vehicle. Back in the 50s some cars had available gasoline heaters for instant heat but I haven't heard of one since then.

I guess they figure that if one was so sensory deprived that they couldn't figure out the air coming out the vent wasn't hot anymore that person didn't really need to be operating a vehicle anyway. There is another big industry cover up that I bet you haven't even heard of yet. I just read it on CNN's web site myself and couldn't believe it. If you don't start the motor the car won't accelerate when you step on the gas even though it still has a speedometer!! Someone should start a class action lawsuit!!

Steve B.

Reply to
Steve B.

snipped-for-privacy@coolgroups.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com:

Like Steve B says, it probably has to do with cost, weight and complexity. It would make no sense to add all that when the car gives you an essentially free source of heat from its own engine.

I'd think most buyers would rather have their cost and complexity put into things like the audio system, GPS's, plusher interiors, more powerful engines, the sorts of things they'd use all the time.

If you want to heat up the interior more quickly, get remote start installed. Or start the car, get back out again, then scrape off the glass while letting the engine and heater blower do their thing.

Not being familiar with the BMW dashboard, I can't hazard an answer to that.

Reply to
Tegger

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