expatdoris

One from my hubby, are engine block heaters on every car? Thanks, so much to find out.

el_richo

No

Dashie

We've never had one either, and don't know anyone who has. I think you only need them up north, or really really cold places, so would depend where you're wanting to go.

expatdoris

Alberta, Calgary?

Aviator

All of my diesel vehicles have block heaters. Saves run up to pre heat the engine, saves load on the starter.

expatdoris

Diesels in canada, do you pay a premium for diesels, is the fuel cheaper?

Does the fuel freeze?

leith

No, not even in Alberta. I drove a Dodge Colt there for 18 years and it never had a block heater.

expatdoris

Is that a dodgy horse They would not need an engine block, a horse blanket perhaps.

Aviator

Canada is not the wild west anymore. Sometimes diesel is cheaper than gasoline, sometimes not. Diesel does not freeze, it does separate and wax through. Colder countries have winter diesel, which is good to -40c or so.

Never seen ice road truckers? http://www.history.com/shows/ice-road-truckers

Piff Poff

Some of our cars have (have had) block heaters, sometimes they are used sometimes they are not. It has depended on the car and the temperature and whether the car has been run lots or little.

I suppose if you have a vehicle that is new or just a couple of years old and is used daily and has a strong starter and it lives overnight in a garage and your in Calgary then your unlikely to need to plug in too often.

If you have an older car that coughs a little at the cooler temps then your going to be plugging in when it dips below -21.

On the really cold days OH will start my car before he leaves for work to make sure my car will start for me in an hour or so, he'll also defrost it and sweep the snow from it too

expatdoris

And are these fitted as standard or are they fitted by a mechanic or is it an electric blanket for the car that you remove before starting up? Thanks.

dbd33

Some come as standard. Some are fitted by mechanics. In either case they're a heater in the engine block with a wire that comes out the front grill and dangles like a string.

rob28

The heaters are (apparently) only of use once the temp drops below about -18degC and 3-4hrs of it being on should be long enough for the heater to have done its thing. We now have timers so they come on at about 3 in the morning

The first car we had (2002 GMC Jimmy) had a block heater fitted, our new truck (new F-150) has one fitted and all the work trucks have one fitted. I was told be the Ford dealer that all trucks come with them as standard as part of a 'Canada/cold weather' package. Not sure about cars tough....

Even though our truck is new, we still use the heater whenever possible to minimise extra stress on the starter and othe components - plus a lot of car parks have rows and rows of sockets specifically for this purpose.

expatdoris

Seems this was not such a dumb question afterall. Great, thanks for the info.

MikeUK

All the data I have seen suggested that they start saving money and fuel at around -10 deg C (some data suggests that you can $$ save from 0deg )and only need to be on for about 1hr.

Some useful info on the Block Heater
http://www.metrompg.com/posts/block-...to-plug-in.htm
Link this to this site that show how much fuel is used in a cold engine
http://metrompg.com/posts/warm-up-idling.htm
And you can easily see how a block heater can save you money if used sensibly with a timer.