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Takes forever to heat up....

27117 Views 29 Replies 15 Participants Last post by  Dvan5693
It's a 2014 1.4 Turbo 6 speed manual with 9,000 miles on it.

So far I have had two service engine lights and my car takes forever to get any heat.

I realize these are small engines but it's obviously not too small because GM chose regular heat from coolant instead of electric heat.

When it's under 30 I have timed it at about 25 minutes of city driving before the engine is up to temp.

I will even turn the thermostat all the way to cold to close the heater core to help it heat up faster and it does.....barely and then when the engine is finally up to temp and I turn the heat on many times the engine temp will go right back down so I will only get a few moments of actual good heat.

It's been in the shop twice for CEL's and I had them look at this issue as well. They claim both times that they were able to get heat in 5 minutes, which is complete BS. What to I do? I have had 23 vehicles over the years, some were $900 beaters and they had better heat than this thing. I find myself not shifting passed 4th gear just so the engine will heat up a little quicker.

I went out and started my car a couple days ago 30 minutes before I left work, when I got in the car the needle was still on dead cold. Do I keep taking it in? I'm tired of having to have rentals not to mention the fact that this is a new car with only 9000 miles on it. If I take it in one more time and it's not resolved I will qualify for Indiana's Lemon Law which I am more than willing to do at this point, I'm tired of being frozen my entire way home, not to mention it has a hard time defrosting until it's warm.

Suggestions? White trash it and zip tie some cardboard to the grill to help?
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My car used to take forever too. I bought some amsoil coolant boost and it made a huge difference. Plus I leave my heat on recirulate and fan speed on 1. I have plenty of heat after running the car for 10 mins
I interested yet skeptical that anything I could add to the coolant would help it warm up, without some sort of trade off in cooling capacity.

I can have heat in 10 minutes also, just need to head straight out onto the highway at 55mph+.
I agree! I can feel "warm" air after about 5 minutes of city driving but get me on the highway and my fan gets turned down to 1 after about 10 minutes.
Big thanks folks. I'm going to play around with the heat/fan/recirc over the next couple days. Should be a good week to test it, we have wind chills of negative 4F heading for a high of 19 and low of 3.
I interested yet skeptical that anything I could add to the coolant would help it warm up, without some sort of trade off in cooling capacity.

I can have heat in 10 minutes also, just need to head straight out onto the highway at 55mph+.
I'm not the only one who has seen an improvement in warm up time. There are many people here that would agree with me on this, the research is there.. sorry you feel skeptical. We all don't have the luxury of heading straight onto the highway
I interested yet skeptical that anything I could add to the coolant would help it warm up, without some sort of trade off in cooling capacity.

I can have heat in 10 minutes also, just need to head straight out onto the highway at 55mph+.
Not one person reported not seeing a difference so far. I'd have to look through and see how many people bought the product but it's in multiple dozens.

The science behind surfectants used in antifreeze is not a new one. The idea is that by improving the surface tension of the antifreeze, you can improve thermal transfer.

I demonstrated in my vendor section through a screenshot that even with the coolant boost, on a Crown Vic, there was an over 30F gap between the cylinder head temp and the antifreeze temp. This is because thermal transfer is not instantaneous. What this does is close the gap between antifreeze temp and the engine block and cylinder head temp.

In reality, you are actually causing the *engine* to take longer to heat up, but the *antifreeze* is heating up more quickly. To you, it will appear as though the engine is warming up more quickly because the temp gauge measures antifreeze temp, not cylinder head temp.

The same improved thermal transfer then dissipates more heat through the heater core to bring you heat faster in the cabin.

In my car, the air is lukewarm by 110F. By 120F, it is positively warm and I can increase fan speed. Note: 120F is the "cold" mark on the temp gauge, and on a 20F day, I get heat in the cabin at that temperature. By 140F, I get comfortable heat.
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I kinda saw temps with dominator but from driving it w/o idle. I purposely left the car outside of the heated garage tonight to see how long it takes to warm up in 4 hrs when I leave work.

XR which CV? CVPI have some kind of rear cylinder heat pipe that isn't on the Civilian CV's. Can't find the thread as it was like 10 years ago when I was gonna do it on my 4V 4.6.

This..

http://www.reinhartperformance.com/...ode=12345&Product_Code=MM_RCK&Category_Code=9
I am having the same issue with my temp gauge but I am at 61,000 miles. It was working fine before that however once the weather got done to 55 degrees in TX, i noticed the car took a while to warm. I have read other posts where the cruze has issues with defective thermostats at about 60,000 miles. Mainly, if the car doesn't heat like it should, there are roughly two generally answers and that is the thermostat is not behaving correctly, and/or there is an issue with the heater core. With 9,000 miles i would just ask the dealership to change the thermostat out since its relatively easy to do and see if that doesn't help.
We're so sorry that you've been experiencing concerns with your temperature gauge. We'd be happy to look into this matter for you and scan your VIN within our system to see if there are any open service announcements that deal with your concern. Feel free to send us a private message with your VIN and more information if our help is needed. We look forward to hearing from you!

Kristen A.
Chevrolet Customer Care
I kinda saw temps with dominator but from driving it w/o idle. I purposely left the car outside of the heated garage tonight to see how long it takes to warm up in 4 hrs when I leave work.

XR which CV? CVPI have some kind of rear cylinder heat pipe that isn't on the Civilian CV's. Can't find the thread as it was like 10 years ago when I was gonna do it on my 4V 4.6.

This..

www.reinhartperformance.com: REINHART COOLING KIT
It was my upline dealer's CV, and he bought it at auction and wrapped it with AMSOIL marketing. I believe it was a CVPI. Here's the scan he sent me:



You can see cylinder head temp at 198F and engine coolant temp at 165F, a difference of 33F after using coolant boost. He said his warm-up times drastically reduced after adding it, and given that temperature gap between the coolant and the cylinder head, I can see why.
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I agree! I can feel "warm" air after about 5 minutes of city driving but get me on the highway and my fan gets turned down to 1 after about 10 minutes.
That's pretty much the story with my '13 1.4LT cruze. It warms suprisingly fast for such a small engine. With that said it cools rapidly when off of course.
Even my 4.3L 2003 S-10 takes a while to warm up at idle. When it's below zero I usually give it 5 minutes then hit the road. It warms up quickly then of course.
To OP sounds like you may have an issue going on.

Me for example. This morning it was -2, not much of a windchill. I let my car run about 10-15 minutes. With NO heat on. Fan on zero. Went to leave, temp gauge not moved after idling. After driving a mile through my sub, staying around 2k on the tach, gauge budged! Drive another 2 miles or so while keeping between 2-2.5k on the tac and wait at a light. After the 2 miles(at most) to get to the light, my temp gauge was close to the quarter mark. Turn the heat on to 2 or 3(out of 6) and temp gauge starts moving down quickly. Turn heat down to fan speed 1 and give it some gas at the light while in neutral, keeping it around 1.5k to generate more heat. Doing this kept it pretty close to quarter mark on the temp gauge.

After that city driving occurred of 40-50 mph, again keeping it around 2k to generate more heat. A few more miles down the road and I'm almost to normal operating temp on the gauge. Stop at a light, turn fan setting to 4 after maybe 30 seconds of this I notice the temp gauge barely moving, so I turn down to speed 2, gauge stops moving....I can deal with 2 for now as I'm not freezing anymore. After just a few more minutes of driving/idling it hits the middle mark on temp gauge(normal operating temp) and stays there.

ONCE the engine temp finally reaches normal operating temp with this car for a few minutes, it seems the iron block holds the heat very well and will roast you right out of the car. However being an iron block vs aluminum it takes much longer to heat up but does HOLD the heat longer once heated. VS an aluminum block that will heat faster but dissipate faster.

This is the price we pay for a 1.4T that's as fuel efficient as it is....want quicker heat? Buy a car with an aluminum block or a diesel with an actual electric heater or don't complain about gas prices and drive something that doesn't get 40+mpg. There's always trade-offs. People will always complain about something and want the WORLDS BEST AMAZING CAR for 20k....doesn't work like that. Yes it stinks, but it's just part of the game, don't like it then sell the car because it's NOT going to change lol.
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