OEM electric block heater for the 4th gen

Thanks for the recall heads-up. I've just emailed our dealership regarding (our 3rd gen). We had the blockheater installed at time of purchase, coming up on 7 years back. The recall issue is apparently inadequate insualtion between wires in the cord. I found this about the recall:

Toyota Recalls Certain Accessory Block Heaters

No ideas regarding your fourth gen install difficulty, hopefully someone will chime in. Have you tried contacting a dealership parts department? They for sure must have some answers. There were some postings here about difficulties due to the active grill shutters: mechanics had routed the power cord out through the shutters, messing them up.

 

For the record, this recall is no joke. This is my 2016 Prius in January 2017:





The block heater was determined to be the cause by fire investigators. I just got the block heater recall notice yesterday:

 

Welcome back.

In your case I had assumed the cord had internal damage after running through the active shutters.
What did you get as a replacement?

It is interesting that Alaska is tied to Toyota Canada instead of Toyota US. Do you get the US models or the Canadian ones?

 

I’m not sure where they landed on that. After the fire investigator left and the claim was paid, the only other thing I heard from the insurance company is that they are going to court at some unknown point in the future. I’m not really involved in that, though.

We do get the Canadian parts; at the time I bought my car and the fire happened, there was no US part number. I’m not sure if or how that changed between then and now.

Oh, and thanks for the welcome!

 

I checked with our Service Manager: he said the block heater in our 2010 is not in the recall, but he was aware of the recall. His reassurance:

Hi Mendel
Thanks for the query; your 2010 Prius is not involved in the upcoming safety recall campaign.
The subject vehicles are 2016/17
Yours is fine!

It's plugged in as I type...

 

So Kendall is the brand of block heater people use in NA?

Here we have basically only 2 brands available Defa (Norway) and Calix (Sweden).

Sometimes there a fires related to those, mostly due to old unit shortcuts, problems with power socket or something covering the interior heater.
Fires are quite rare considering how many cars have them here (and some of them 15-20 years old).

Older cars have block heaters that heat the cooler fluid directly, but nowdays with aluminium blocks it`s not as efficient.
A new block heater is basically just like a clothes iron warming the side of the engine.

One should make sure power the socket can handle the heaters and usually people use a timer.

Here the recomendations for using a aluminium block heater are:
outside temp >0C no heating
outside temp 0C to -5C 1 hour
-5C to -10C 2 hours
>-10C 3 hours

Nowdays webasto and OEM heaters that use fuel to warm up the car are becoming more and more common.
Never heard of one being installed into a prius though.

 

Kendall is the Alaskan Toyota dealer's name

 

The Toyota accessory is not available?

For me, year 'round: 2 hours more-or-less plateaus, about 30C above ambient. That's how we use it. That is with the Toyota block heater.

 

Ok. I was not even close then.

 

Here Toyota dealerships install Defa (Defa and Calix combined have like 99,5% market share so that's what people want I guess).

Here what it look's like (a bit dark).

Although now that you asked it could be that the block heater itself might be Toyota and all the rest (wireing, outdoor plug, indoor plug, outdoor cable and indoor heater are Defa). But I think they buy the whole set from Defa since they make the block heater too.

Do you guys usually have an interior heater also? Or just the block?
I'm just asking out of curiosity.

Here the justification for block heaters used to be that "one cold start wears the engine as much as driving 500-600 km", but I read somewhere that with modern motor oils that is not really the case anymore.

With the prius I'm thinking it helps more to have the battery warm.
Althought the engine sounds like it's having a much easier time after using the block heater.

 

The block heater does not heat the battery. It reduces the amount of time the engine needs to run to get up to optimal temperature.

 

Yes I understand that but the interior heater does.

 

Just block heater, which we use I would say 95% of time before first cold-start of the day, year 'round. Our climate is relatively mild, coastal, and I appreciate our block heater use is somewhat unorthodox.

Yes, basically gains you up to 30C. Two hours use means you can start to get engine shut-down within say two blocks of home, partially warmed up. In particular if you shut the ventilation system right off, say when you reach a red light and stop: the car detects this, and I'd surmise it's programming concludes heating demands are not needed, "oks" a shut down sooner than later.

I've got no actual data, but suspect it's got to help with engine longevity.