AC was great in the summer but...

FWIW, I think you'll have to come out of ECO Mode for the heater to work best. Like you, though the heated seats are just as good, if not better.

 

I'm staying in Yosemite West right now for 4 days! I'm hoping I can get out of the driveway tomorrow with the tire chains because of the snow. I heard this is the biggest storm in the past 5 years. It's supposed to be 19ºF tonight and there's a bunch of rain in the forecast.

Have you tried the defroster front windshield and rear? It works for me to de-fog the windshield

 

30 degrees here today, no heat on. this is what separates the men from the boys. or girls.

 

Is your system in Auto?

You aren't using recirculate mode, are you?

 

do you press the front anti fog button for the windshield?

 

Sounds like you have recirculate on. Whenever it's cold out I see someone with warm weather state plates trying to see out fogged up windows. I always assume that it's because they have recirculate on, I don't know why they can't figure it out. I've been in much colder weather with the Prius and I have no problem with fogging or with the heater working effectively in eco mode. It takes awhile for it to warm up but leaving it in auto set at 70 everything works just fine. It was 3ºF this morning, no issues.

Put the heater on the floor setting where it belongs, make sure recirculate is turned off. My guess is that will resolve your fogging issue. The lack of heat issue is probably because the car isn't getting warmed up enough to provide enough heat.

 

Make sure it's in Auto. With our 2011 I found the ACC to be ineffective with ECO in extreme weather (hot or cold). We saw no real difference in MPG using it ... so we stopped placing it in ECO. The 2016 seems to take a bit longer to heat up vs the 2011.

You do understand the 2016 have a new system that try turns off heat/cool to unoccupied areas of the car. IMO it is taking things too far .. especially if you have to use the electric seat heaters. Was very uncomfortable the first few times I drove the car -- the system works great in Auto with the position system off.

Both of our Prius have the heated seat option. The heat is more uniform in the 16's. To bad Toyota did not use the same seats as our Lexus CT -- more comfortable and the seat heater has a variable adjustment.

 

To get the best heating, make sure drive mode is "Normal" and heater is not set to "S-Flow" and not set on "Eco" .
What I do on cold days is firstly switch on the heater (auto) and rear defogger, select front defogger on heater, then after a while when the windscreen is clear, select "Auto Fast mode" (press Auto button to cycle through the modes, Fast, Eco and Normal) and make sure S-Mode is off and Dual climate is off so the car gets evenly heated. I also use the drivers heated seat, set on high.
A higher temperature set on the heater doesn't make car warm up quicker, but it takes longer to reach higher settings.
This is of course the most inefficient in terms of mpg, but IMO the most efficient and quickest way to heat the car up.

 

AND that it is NOT in recirc.
AND not in ECO mode.
AND that the temp is set at least to 75 F (higher is better)
AND do NOT manually turn the A/C OFF when that light comes on.

It is the A/C running intermittently that accomplishes the dehumidification.

If you need more defrost power, turn the front defroster ON.

Alas, small cars don't heat good.

 

mine is like the sahara.

 

You turned off the AC light, didn't you? The car uses the AC to dry the air before it is heated to avoid fogging the windows.
Either that. or quit hyperventilating

 

Barren and sandy???

 

that's one way to describe it.

 

I thought you were not at the beach yet...

 

34 days, but who's counting.

 

Driving the PiP or a new Prime?

 

nah, hycam, much more comfortable, and still 42 mpg.