General Poor heater

[heraldsteve]

My wife has owned her 500 1.3 diesel multijet from new (09 reg) and the heater has always taken ages to warm up. I keep promising to check it out, so better late than never? but I don't want to waste time if this is this normal. Anyone else find theirs the same or is this unusual?

 

[chris3234]

Common on a diesel engine they take ages to warm up especially if driven around town

For contract my old 1.3 500 I could be 2 mike's down local roads then a miles down the motorway bfor it got to temp

My current 1.4 Tipo petrol is upto temp about a mile down the road

 

[rallycinq]

Its a diesel, they do take longer to warm up than petrol.

D

 

[heraldsteve]

Thanks for the quick feedback. At least now I won't need to fix it ??

 

[John202020]

Thanks for the quick feedback. At least now I won't need to fix it ??

It's worth changing the coolent though?

 

[AndyRKett]

My old punto 1.3 multijet used to take about 3 - 4 miles to warm up.

Its very common that diesels take a long time to warm up. My 1.3 multijet punto does too.

My diesel golf has a coolant heater to bring the engine up to temp quicker.

If it was a problem you can buy after market coolant heaters to do the job of heating the coolent to temperature quicker. This also helps reduce wear and tear on the engine.

 

[Moimo]

My 1.6 mjet if you start it and end up straight in stop start traffic, takes about 4 years to heat up, as a car overall it is brilliant but it’s borderline dangerous from cold in the winter, can’t demist, fogs up inside, I’ve had it for years and the overall package is great. If it’s driven even just at 20/30 from cold you can have heat in a few mins. A preheater would be great or a heated window, I guess if that’s my only real issue I shouldn’t grumble. I have a mk2 golf gti that when the weather is bad I use that, start up, switch on blower watch the window clear, drive off and relish in the heat.

 

[wardpaa]

Would be worth plugging in an OBD reader and software like Torque, then add the coolant temp read out to see if it's getting up to working temperature. Should sit at around 85C once up to temp.
My petrol was running at 65C max yet the dash gauge still read half way. Replaced the thermostat and it rockets up to 85C.
Being more efficient, diesels take a longer time to warm up and some have a heater booster (like an immersion heater) to help bring up to working temperature faster, but a faulty stat would still give you issues.

 

[heraldsteve]

Thank you for all the feedback. I might just change the stat anyway but it sounds like she will have to continue being cold for a few miles ?

 

[AndyRKett]

Thank you for all the feedback. I might just change the stat anyway but it sounds like she will have to continue being cold for a few miles ��

You may rethink that when you see how much a stat costs for a 1.3 multijet

That said they are cheaper than they used to be but still considerably more expensive than you’d pay for the petrol equivalent.