c240x

Is the heater in the car mainly powered by residual engine heat or a separate heating element, or a combination? I find that it takes forever for heat to come out of the vents, it seems to blow cold air even when the climate control is set to AUTO with the temperature dial set around 72 degrees. I usually have to manually kick start the heat by turning the dials to all the way to hot, and backing it off when I feel some warmth. And this is with the center "blue" dial closed. Anyone else experience this or has my AUTO climate control gone wonky?! It's darn cold in the midwest...lucky for those heated seats!

Lynn

My cars produces heat very quickly, leading me to believe that is a heating element in addition to the standard heater which use the engine coolant. I usually get some heat from the vents within three minutes of starting the engine.

mctwin2kman

If it is anything like the older Benz's then there is most likely a heating element in the dash for the vents. My 190E gets warm very quickly at the outside vents and when I had the cluster out there was a pipe in there that was hot as hell and I kept buring my arm on it when I would hit it. So this leads me to believe there is something in there that heats using something other than the coolant. It could have been one of the AC lines routed into the car as well, whichever side is the hot side, I forget if that is the high pressure side or the low pressure side of the AC system. Those get warm quick when in use so it could be that mixed with the defrost selection thus turning the AC compressor on and causing the line to warm. The line went through the heater box.

Lynn

It isn't the hot side of the AC. I have the AC compressor off and I still get warm air form the vents in a couple of minutes. Also, I think using the AC as a heat pump would be very inefficient compared to an electric heating element.

mctwin2kman

It was just a thought. The pipe gets very hot very quickly so it must be electronic, also it does heat up in my 190 without the AC on or in defrost mode. I do have a button on the climate control for the side window defrosters, which are the side vents and that seems to cycle the AC as well, but the vents still get hot without this pushed. Of course Center vents are cold as hell because no heat goes to them, so they be closed.

Buellwinkle

I get no heat, that's why it's at the dealer today. It was acceptable last week when it was in the mid 70's but not this week, I'm freezing here, close to 60F.

tifosiv122

Sorry, there is only one thing I can say to this...and its another name for a cat...common 60F?

On the topic though...my car gets hot within 2-3 minutes everytime.

Erik

Guest0001

I have to put the temp on HIGH for there to be any heat coming in! Does this bother me? Not really. As long as the heat comes in whatever degree.

Buellwinkle

No, you don't understand, that's the daytime high, it was 56F this morning, now that's really cold. The dealer just called and the heater is fixed, woohoo, now I can sit in comfort like you polar bears in NJ. Also they fix the performance problem, turned out to be a bad plug wire in the number 4 cyl. I'm suprised it didn't throw a misfire code or run rough. Now I have to put the pulley back on, arghh, another wasted hour. At this rate I'm going to have to heat my garage.

moomeh

btw, my car takes more like 7-10 minutes to heat up. probably since its 7F. . the heated seats do warm up well. i wear gloves, but a heated steering wheel would be great.

Lynn

I'm sure that Steve would be happy to fix you up. I have been thinking along those lines, but it isn't in the budget for the near future.

jpb5151

Ours takes about that long too. The seats take about 5, then the car itself gets warmer a few minutes after that. Then, if it's like a usual trip (to the lab), we enjoy only a couple minutes and then have to get out into the cold again.