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How good is the heater?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by Batavier, Aug 31, 2004.

  1. Batavier

    Batavier Member

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    The major consumer organisation in the Netherlands did a (short) review/test of the Prius and the Civic IMA. The Prius scored a moderate 67/100 points. I totally disagree with their review and will write them a letter saying so.

    One of their points was that the aircon and especially heater wasn't that good. I know the aircon works great for cooling having experienced it myself, but I haven't been able to test the heater.

    Anyone living in parts of the world where it's quite cold? What's your experience with the aircon-heater of the Prius compared to other/previous cars?
     
    #1 Batavier, Aug 31, 2004
  2. swepri

    swepri New Member

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    I have only had my Prius for four days, so obviously I have no winter experience. But one motor magazine in Sweden has driven a Prius for the better part of a year and their opinion was that the heater is quite good and fast too. It had to compete with a Volvo which of course always do very good i cold conditions. In sweden we also have seat heating as standard equipment and that was OK too. The only thing the magazine wasn't too happy about was the defroster, they had to constantly run the fan at high speed to keep windows clean from moisture. I think that is a common Toyota problem.

    If your Swedish is good :D , view this link:

    http://www.vibilagare.se/longtest.asp?guid...83-3D57BEB17381

    /Paj
     
    #2 swepri, Aug 31, 2004
  3. montolchik

    montolchik New Member

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    I think the heater works very well. I took delivery of my car on Dec 9th last year and I live on the edge of a snow belt off of Lake Erie in Northeastern Ohio. The car really only took a few minutes before the cabin was warm. The climate control was very nice in Winter because I could set the car to something comfortable and I would never have to adjust the heater down after the cabin had warmed up.
     
    #3 montolchik, Aug 31, 2004
  4. KathyY

    KathyY Member

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    the heater is great! I took delivery of mine around Thanksgiving so went through a Maryland winter. Even when the car was parked outside and I had to remove ice from the car, the heater had the car warmed up nicely within a couple of blocks of driving.
     
    #4 KathyY, Aug 31, 2004
  5. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    I'll second that!

    Last year's -18F was proof enough for me.
     
    #5 john1701a, Aug 31, 2004
  6. HTMLSpinnr

    HTMLSpinnr Super Moderator
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    Prius is special in that we get some electric PTC type heaters (at least two) mounted in the floor area of the HVAC unit. These will activate usually when ambient temps are below 65 degrees, climate control is in "auto" mode w/ the temp setting above "Max cold" (or definately with "Max heat") the engine coolant is relatively cold. This brings on some semi-instant heat right after startup.

    The classic Prius has this setup too, however, it required the operator to put the controls in the floor or floor defrost postition before they'd kick on.

    There have been some reports that some regions don't get this feature - though I got it in both cars delivered to Southern California.

    Only down side w/ the Prius heater is that the ICE stays on longer at stop to keep the coolant temp up to keep us warm. Such sacrifice... :)
     
    #6 HTMLSpinnr, Aug 31, 2004
  7. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    i think the reason the defroster runs on high frequently is simply because the windshield is so large.
     
    #7 DaveinOlyWA, Aug 31, 2004
  8. FarNorth

    FarNorth Junior Member

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    Our Salsa Red was delivered on 11 December 2003. We live in Alaska and I drove it during all last winter including setting in the parking lot for 8+ hours of cold sink between starts. I had no problem with start and the interior was warm within several blocks after starting. We have had two other Toyotas and this is the best for comfort.

    My wife really enjoys the temperature sensitive feature as it allows her to have a comfortable interior without the constant fan blowing or chasing a comfort zone between too warm and too cold.

    Raymond
     
    #8 FarNorth, Aug 31, 2004
  9. Batavier

    Batavier Member

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    Ah, great responses!!

    /bow

    Exactly what I need to 'build' my case. Coming winter my GF will be the ultime 'test' for the heater. She always says that it's cold. :D
     
    #9 Batavier, Aug 31, 2004
  10. IsrAmeriPrius

    IsrAmeriPrius Progressive Member

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    Perhaps it is time to move to warmer climes?

    8)
     
    #10 IsrAmeriPrius, Aug 31, 2004
  11. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    It only got down to 18 below zero in Minneapolis last year? Hmmm. Seems to me we had some 30 below zero F., guess I'm not sure - I try to forget winter as soon as it's over. But the Prius heats faster and puts out more heat than my '89 Civic did. I have no comparison to other cars, but the Prius has an excellent heater in it.
     
    #11 daniel, Aug 31, 2004
  12. Batavier

    Batavier Member

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    Now there's an idea. :lol: 8)


    Oh, and thanks for the link, swepri. I don't speak Swedish, but reading it is no big problem.
     
    #12 Batavier, Sep 1, 2004
  13. swepri

    swepri New Member

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    I think both our languages are quite related to the German language. When reading Dutch text I usually can understand a few words. But when I hear you guys speak it I'm totally clueless.

    BTW, the test car used in the magazine had some warning light problems a few months ago, Toyota service said it was overheating of the hybrid battery. The car was from a very early production stage.

    /Paj
     
    #13 swepri, Sep 1, 2004
  14. LewLasher

    LewLasher Member

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    English, too, is a Germanic language, albeit with a substantial overlay of French vocabulary.

    A few years ago I studied Norwegian, and my reaction was similar to swepri's impression of Dutch: lots of words I could recognize, but often very different in pronunciation.

    At the risk of hijacking this topic (we all agree that the Prius heater is very good, right? OK, so we're done with that), it led me to wonder: which language is closest to English? I wouldn't consider either French or Norwegian especially close to English - not the way that Italian is close to Spanish or Norwegian is close to Swedish and Danish. If I had to choose, I'd give the edge to Norwegian (leaving aside which among the non-Finnish Scandivanian languages is closest to English) over French. The grammatical structure of English seems closer to Norwegian than to French. I don't speak German, but what little I know about its word order makes it seem further from English. The word order in Norwegian seems extremely similar to English (except for the subject/verb inversion rule). I don't know enough (well, anything) about Dutch to know how close it is to English, just that practically every Dutch person I've ever met speaks excellent English!

    I suppose I should really continue this over in Fred's ...

    OK, try this link to continue this tangential discussion.
     
    #14 LewLasher, Sep 1, 2004
  15. Batavier

    Batavier Member

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    LOL :) Agreed!

    I'll check out the link you provided. :)


    On the subject of the consumer organization: one of the members of Dutch Prius Yahoo group already sent an email to this organization to 'register a complaint'. I guess there will be more emails from other members (including me) to show our disagreement with their so-called test. Not only did they get it wrong on the subject of the heater, but also on noise in the car (according to their test you could hear the electric motor very loudly when accelerating fast.... :rolleyes:). And one other negative point was that one has to reach 'quite far' to close the front and rear passenger doors... OMG!

    :shakehead:
     
    #15 Batavier, Sep 1, 2004
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