Helsinki Hippie
New member
Hi Everyone,
Helsinki Newbie here. Wondering about what's to come here in Finland when thermometer gets to -20C and I go to start my "new" '06 Fiat 1.2.
It's common in Finland to have engine block heaters installed for those "cold-as-a-witch's-teat" mornings; that's why my parking space has mains pole with timer for two hours daily. Also common to have an inside heater as well - beats scraping windscreens, and there's nothing like sitting down in an already-warm interior on a freezing AM!
With the assistance of my lovely wife, we searched Finnish-language forum and found there appears to be two options with Fiat:
1) engine block system (which warms up the engine oil, and the type that I had in my earlier car, which worked well), or
2) something that translates to "pipe heater" which seems to be installed somewhere on the coolant side - ?
I'm currently perplexed as to what to do.
Finnish forums relate a few horror stories regarding the "pipe heater", as the CPU apparently gets confused when the coolant's temp is high, leading it to think the engine's warm, lowering the RPM's causing them to stall.
A few people suggest that the car starts well WITHOUT any kind of a pre-warming system, and there seems to be little said about the block-warming type - the only type I ever heard of until ferreting the Finnish forums.
I WILL have an external mains lead added in any case, as I refuse to go without the interior heater (once you've had it, you can't live without it...)
BUT, any input/advice/suggestions about engine pre-warming systems would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers In Advance, :worship:
Helsinki Newbie here. Wondering about what's to come here in Finland when thermometer gets to -20C and I go to start my "new" '06 Fiat 1.2.
It's common in Finland to have engine block heaters installed for those "cold-as-a-witch's-teat" mornings; that's why my parking space has mains pole with timer for two hours daily. Also common to have an inside heater as well - beats scraping windscreens, and there's nothing like sitting down in an already-warm interior on a freezing AM!
With the assistance of my lovely wife, we searched Finnish-language forum and found there appears to be two options with Fiat:
1) engine block system (which warms up the engine oil, and the type that I had in my earlier car, which worked well), or
2) something that translates to "pipe heater" which seems to be installed somewhere on the coolant side - ?
I'm currently perplexed as to what to do.
Finnish forums relate a few horror stories regarding the "pipe heater", as the CPU apparently gets confused when the coolant's temp is high, leading it to think the engine's warm, lowering the RPM's causing them to stall.
A few people suggest that the car starts well WITHOUT any kind of a pre-warming system, and there seems to be little said about the block-warming type - the only type I ever heard of until ferreting the Finnish forums.
I WILL have an external mains lead added in any case, as I refuse to go without the interior heater (once you've had it, you can't live without it...)
BUT, any input/advice/suggestions about engine pre-warming systems would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers In Advance, :worship:
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