a winter warm up tip
 

besides the wonders of a block heater and grill block here's a quick one that some of you may not have thought of. while the engine is cold turn your heat dial all the way down. this will cut off coolant flow to the heater core which also acts as a smaller secondary rad. once the car starts to warm up turn the heat back on. i find it cuts down on warmup time a surprising amount for me, so just passing it along.

that and the engine heater and my car is warm in less than 5 mins in the freezing cold weather :D

Good advice, been doing it for years.

regards
gary

Makes perfect sense :thumbup: but you posted this three months late:mad:

the sucky thing about winter is it seems to come back year after year.

I'll definitely try it a little this year and keep it in mind for next year as well.

I keep the air intake on recirculate - I don't think the temperature control actually turns off the water flow to the heater any more in newer cars. I think the temperature control mixes the heated air with the unheated air flowing through the heater box. The effect is the same however and keeping the fan off and on recirculate definately warms the engine faster. I wonder if they will ever think to put a small electric heater in a gas powered car to take the edge off when the engine is cold. Most of the alternators can provide plenty of power to keep the battery charged with a 50 amp heater load.

Depends on the car, and always has. My '62 Comet has water constantly circulating through the heater core, as did all '86-95 Tauruses. A friend's '91 Shadow didn't. I'm unsure what my xB has as I haven't had to take that system apart. Keeping the fan turned off and the heat set to cold still will help by preventing air flowing over the heater core even if it is still circulating through it.

Heater? What heater? :mad:

In my hybrid, I can't get into EV mode until I reach 161F water temp. Seems like I get to that temp about the time I pull into the parking lot at my destination. And, that's with a full rad block and an EBH.

Of course, it has been 10F for most of the last 2 months!

So, my heater stays off most of the time...

Eph

One way to find out is to check your factory service manual for proper bleeding procedures for the coolant system. If it says "Put you thermostat all the way to hot" then this means this technique that ZeroGrav suggested will work on your car.

yea my chevette constantly flows but i dont think the 95 s-10 does.

I know that on my 81 Buick, and my 86 Chevy pickup they both have vacuum activated solenoids that shut off coolant flow to the heater core. I'm not sure if the 98 GMC truck has it too.

-Jay