GermanTahoe
11-25-2001, 10:03 AM
As winter is back again and some people are asking about engine block heaters and remote starts again, I just wanted to show you guys what people here in Germany (including me) use to have a nice warm car w/ defrosted windows in the morning or whereever they park their cars.
It is called a parking heater and is basically a gasoline powered engine block heater that warms up your engine coolant, pumps it through the entire engine and heater core and turns on your cars heater.
It lets you have a nice warm car everytime you want to drive somewhere (or even stand in a traffic jam) without having to let your car idle and produce toxic emmissons (at start up the cat does not work until the engine is warmed up!).
You also get the following benefits:
- dramatically reduces engine wear as your engine is already warmed up when you start it (a cold start-up is said to produce as much wear as 60mls driving)
- improves your mpg as engine uses most gas during start up: the engine stays in open loop dumping fuel untill it is warm, while a pre-warmed engine goes into closes loop right away. (for instance, I do not use more gas during the winter than during the summer)
- needs only very little gas: less than 1/8 gallon per hour, while an warm engines uses 1-2 gallons per hour and up to 4 gallons per hour when it is cold.
- having your car idle for warm up is forbidden in some states
- can be turned on by means of a digital timer or an optional remote start (1ml distance) or even by calling a cellular phone. I just installed the last option this winter: relay cool: Say you are in a movie. You can call your car shortly before the end, turn on the heater and have a nice warm car once youget to your car.
- can be used in the summer to turn on the ventilation so your car is not as hot.
- easy to install - took me one afternoon for my Tahoe.
These devices are made by two German companies: Webasto and Eberspaecher and are really popular here in Germany. Webasto sells their stuff in the US as well: www.webasto-thermo.com, but only a limited choice of models and apparantly markets it to fleet customers mainly. You can also check out their European website (in English) for all their options at http://www.webasto.de/home_e/home_e.htm.
If anyone is interested I could get you these for a very interesting price as I can buy them wholesale and the Euro is very low on the Dollar. For instance my system w/ remote controll (w/o the cell phone option, though) cost me a little less than $ 1.000. They seem to cost more in the US.
Christian.
http://www.webasto-thermo.com/images/cs_tsl2.jpg
It is called a parking heater and is basically a gasoline powered engine block heater that warms up your engine coolant, pumps it through the entire engine and heater core and turns on your cars heater.
It lets you have a nice warm car everytime you want to drive somewhere (or even stand in a traffic jam) without having to let your car idle and produce toxic emmissons (at start up the cat does not work until the engine is warmed up!).
You also get the following benefits:
- dramatically reduces engine wear as your engine is already warmed up when you start it (a cold start-up is said to produce as much wear as 60mls driving)
- improves your mpg as engine uses most gas during start up: the engine stays in open loop dumping fuel untill it is warm, while a pre-warmed engine goes into closes loop right away. (for instance, I do not use more gas during the winter than during the summer)
- needs only very little gas: less than 1/8 gallon per hour, while an warm engines uses 1-2 gallons per hour and up to 4 gallons per hour when it is cold.
- having your car idle for warm up is forbidden in some states
- can be turned on by means of a digital timer or an optional remote start (1ml distance) or even by calling a cellular phone. I just installed the last option this winter: relay cool: Say you are in a movie. You can call your car shortly before the end, turn on the heater and have a nice warm car once youget to your car.
- can be used in the summer to turn on the ventilation so your car is not as hot.
- easy to install - took me one afternoon for my Tahoe.
These devices are made by two German companies: Webasto and Eberspaecher and are really popular here in Germany. Webasto sells their stuff in the US as well: www.webasto-thermo.com, but only a limited choice of models and apparantly markets it to fleet customers mainly. You can also check out their European website (in English) for all their options at http://www.webasto.de/home_e/home_e.htm.
If anyone is interested I could get you these for a very interesting price as I can buy them wholesale and the Euro is very low on the Dollar. For instance my system w/ remote controll (w/o the cell phone option, though) cost me a little less than $ 1.000. They seem to cost more in the US.
Christian.
http://www.webasto-thermo.com/images/cs_tsl2.jpg