12v fan heater recommendation

[Robert]

Hi my father has a diesel Citroen C3 and the heater is terrible on it can take up to 10 miles before the car heats up(dealer says its working fine), so he is looking to put a fan heater in it for the winter mornings till its own heater heats up.

SO i am looking for any recommendations as to what to go for

Thanks

Robert

[Richard Moss]

any recommendations

Sell it

[scoobyh123]

SO i am looking for any recommendations as to what to go for

Thanks

Robert

Take the Lemon back to the dealers, demand your money back and go and buy your dad something that isn't a death trap with no warmth!
I've been nearly killed 3 times by the brakes on Citroen vehicles, all of them new/nearly new and the dealers said the brakes worked fine every time as well. So the dealers are NOT to be believed!

Get him a Honda instead of that piece of french merde!

[rovercoup]

Swan vesta 12p or you can get 12v heaters to plug into the cigar socket (not very Pc) 12v accessory socket but in fairness I agree with the other comments. Take it back or sell it

[dollysprint]

Hi my father has a diesel Citroen C3 and the heater is terrible on it can take up to 10 miles before the car heats up(dealer says its working fine), so he is looking to put a fan heater in it for the winter mornings till its own heater heats up.

SO i am looking for any recommendations as to what to go for

Thanks

Robert

Its a problem with a lot of modern diesels. Years ago there used to be summer and winter thermostats and of course the good old radiator muff. The reason Citroen say there is no problem is because to them there isn't one, they do literally "all do that sir"
Try to get a 75 diesel to run above 70 degrees, tis impossible.
There are diesel burning night heaters but these are expensive unless you're friends with a truck company or you could block air flow to the radiator as per the old muffs. Cant help with the 12 volt heater I'm afraid, never had cause to look into it.

Dave

[scoobyh123]

Yet another good reason to not buy a carcinogen machine (diesel vehicle) IMHO. Regardless of my view point, surely there must be a way of getting decent heat out of a modern heater?

[dollysprint]

Its not the heater thats the problem Dave, even our own well loved C27's open their stats at a lowly 78 degrees so a reasonably cool running engine but its at that temp within a mile and a half or 5 mins idle before you jump in her, hence a lovely warm heater. Modern diesels are so thermal efficient some of them take 7-8 miles to reach temp. Add to that you jump in, wack defrost on full and add another means of cooling to an engine that already takes an age to warm up.
Even the motoring press are now advising motorists not to buy a diesel if you only do short journeys(less than 5 miles to work for example) because they never warm up to temp. They just soot up, block the diesel particulate filter(cat to us mere mortals) and you spend your weekends doing an Italian tune up down the M5 to get the engine management light to go off cause your dpf is blocked up. 15 miles later with the light extinguished you turn round and go home feeling all chuffed with yourself until you realise all that fuel you saved driving a diesel to work that week you've just burnt up holding your diesel at 4000rpm for 15 miles to unblock the dpf.
I've always said if your going to drive a diesel it should be at least 10 litres with a Scania badge on the front

Dave

[TheOldMan]

All the above is correct.
On a more helpful note, if he must keep the evil little thing then the only permanent solution is to fit a 220V mains engine block preheater:

http://www.kenlowe.com/pre-heaters/cars/diy.html

[scoobyh123]

Its not the heater thats the problem Dave, even our own well loved C27's open their stats at a lowly 78 degrees so a reasonably cool running engine but its at that temp within a mile and a half or 5 mins idle before you jump in her, hence a lovely warm heater. Modern diesels are so thermal efficient some of them take 7-8 miles to reach temp. Add to that you jump in, wack defrost on full and add another means of cooling to an engine that already takes an age to warm up.
Even the motoring press are now advising motorists not to buy a diesel if you only do short journeys(less than 5 miles to work for example) because they never warm up to temp. They just soot up, block the diesel particulate filter(cat to us mere mortals) and you spend your weekends doing an Italian tune up down the M5 to get the engine management light to go off cause your dpf is blocked up. 15 miles later with the light extinguished you turn round and go home feeling all chuffed with yourself until you realise all that fuel you saved driving a diesel to work that week you've just burnt up holding your diesel at 4000rpm for 15 miles to unblock the dpf.
I've always said if your going to drive a diesel it should be at least 10 litres with a Scania badge on the front

Dave

I see what you're saying Dave. My Sterling has a Rover 216/416 'stat in it so opens at 82C which is nice for me (warmer!) and surprisingly an option from new. Probably never mentioned in the sales blurb though and TBH i can't remember where i found that lovely bit of info but find it i did, hence fitting the 82C 'stat - they're cheaper, use the same gaskets and are much more plentiful. Probably improves fuel economy a little as well. If/when the coupe 'stat needs replacing, it will be with a 216/416 'stat. Just to clarify, that's the 90-96 216/416 with the Honda engine.

Like your analogy about wasting the money they save through the week by doing Italian decokes at the weekend! Serves 'em right i say for buying a diseasel in the first place!
I've always said diesels should be reserved purely for agricultural and commercial vehicles although personal prefernce would have me suggesting a Volvo badge on the front of that 10L engine. Or maybe a "CAT" badge but they're generally construction kit.

Robert/The Old Man - like your idea of a "Hotstart" engine pre-heater. It would certainly do the job they need it to and saves them the Italian decoke at the weekends but surely will guzzle electric at an alarming rate so making it cheaper to buy a petrol in the first place!

All this has reminded me of a magazine article about 30 years ago in "Motor" or some similar magazine. It was entitled "False Economy" or something and was quite a scathing (some might say tongue in cheek) comparison between so-called economy models versus the normal models. Think i still have it somewhere, if so i'll scan it in. Obviously it was the contemporary models of 1985 or thereabouts so not terrifically relevant in terms of cars used but the general principles hold true. One comment, relating to driving at 50mph instead of 60-70mph to save money worked out a journey would cost £x less but take 3 hours longer so would you really want to sit in traffic for £x/3 per hour on your day off when you earn £5x per hour during normal working hours and £7.5x on overtime? I might have the mathematical relationships a little wrong but that was the gist of it.
It also took into account buying diesel models Vs petrol counterparts (in those days you really only had the Golf, Astra/Cavalier and Sierra/Granada models to choose from, maybe a handful of others but not many) and even allowing for the fact diesel was significantly cheaper than petrol then (a bit like LPG : petrol now), it would have taken inter-galactic mileage and decades of ownership just to break even, never mind show a profit by buying a diesel! Resale value was also included in the analysis, just to try and give economy cars a chance but they still came off worse in this article.

If i had to sum it up in a few words, it would be "You buy cheap, you buy twice" or maybe "You buy cheap, you pay dear". Both of which are cliches i know but they are also eons-old adages that are as true today as they always were.