Prius 4th Gen Heater

basically, yes. with a few additional efficiencies.

 

It's rather wimpy though. It takes a while to heat up the cabin.

 

are you in eco mode?

 

there used to be a very mild electric heater in the older pri, to warm the air until the engine warmed up. very difficult to tell if they were working.
eco mode surpasses both a/c and heat on older men's, assuming the same on fourth, but not positive. your o/m would cover it.

 

From an article I read at:

Toyota Unveils Advanced Technologies in All-New Prius | Toyota

"Fuel efficiency is also boosted by improvements to heating performance. An active grille shutter has been added to open and close the grille as necessary in response to outside temperatures. The exhaust heat recirculation system has also been improved and made more compact. This recycles exhaust heat from the engine into the coolant to be reused in the heaters and to warm the engine. Cold weather fuel efficiency has also been improved by introducing an engine coolant selector valve and adding a new system which accelerates engine heating."

 

In colder weather, electric seat heaters work quicker if you have them but otherwise, cycle the Auto Climate Control button until it shows Fast. There are 3 settings; Eco, Normal and Fast. You may choose to deselect the Aircon afterwards, although this will deselect Auto your settings will be held.

 

I am pretty sure we only have Eco & Normal here, set by the Eco button.

 

And I believe the US climate control system can have AC manually deactivated without disengaging auto.

 

Yep similar, and if the ICE hasn't come on yet, turning on the heater will for sure kick it on.

I usually try to use the seat heaters first, and then turn the heater on once i'm on the highway since the ICE will be on anyways.

 

You will find the fan won't come on until the coolant reaches about 50C, unless you have defrost selected. You can leave A/C on, it's activated/deactivated by the set temperature. If the set temperature is higher than ambient cooling will be off, again, unless defrost is selected, then it uses cooling to remove moisture from the air.
ECO mode will "turn down" the heating (fan won't run as fast and maybe the coolant pump as well) - for fastest heating use "normal" mode. Once it starts getting warm you can reselect "ECO". Or just let it do its' thing.

If you start out in a cold car you will find at slower speeds it takes some time to warm up the engine. If you go faster, say above 40 MPH, it is pretty fast (engine is used harder).

 

Hmm, mine heats up fast.

 

Do US Prius, either 3rd or 4th gen, have "license" to engage AC if you push the "AUTO" button. This is the way it was on our previous Civic Hybrid, and this was a major frustration to me: the drill was "push auto and then disable AC".

With our (Canadian) 2010 Prius, the AC button is pretty much autonomous, ie: if it's not been pushed, it's light is not lit, and I push "AUTO", the system goes into auto, but AC does not run, the compressor stays inert.

EXCEPT: when "MODE" is set to heat/defog, this symbol:



Then, under certain conditions, the AC will run, somewhat sporadically (as evidenced by monitoring AC watts used, with ScanGauge). Not sure of the parameters, but I'd suspect ambient temp and humidity are involved. Low ambient temps, nearing or below freezing, AC usually won't run.

 

When you hit "Auto" AC is available, by default.

 

When you say "available", do you mean AC (aka the air conditioning compressor) is likely to run, off-and-on?

Again, this is not the case with our 2010 Canadian Prius, unless you hit Auto and then set mode to heat/defog (or hit the front defog button). Other than that, the AC compressor will not run (verified with ScanGauge).

When you hit Auto, the light does not go on on the AC button either.

 

When you hit "Auto" the AC light comes on and runs as needed. Auto also adjusts which vents are used and whether the air is recirculated or not.

 

Ok, interesting. Not like that, on Canadian 3rd gen at least. It's as I described above, and more to my liking. I don't like the car second-guessing me on AC use.

I wonder if 4th gen Canadian Prius behave per the US Prius, ie: pushing Auto invariably turns on AC, the light on the button, and so on? @Tideland Prius could for sure shed light.

 

Only if his wife lets him,

 

Oh that...