Grill Blocking thought

Well North Dakota gets quite a few of those types of days where temps are -40 to -60 below zero. While the car will not sound happy I have found that taking the Eco off and using normal or power mode works best. The engine can warm up better. Also start the car and let it idle a while before driving. No air being forced through the front helps it to heat up a little faster. I've done that a few times.

 

I didn't know that the driving ECO vs Normal mode changes the heater output in the winter. I have been driving in ECO mode for this winter thus far and found my defrost/heater a little weak. Thanks for the tip. I will try driving under Normal mode to see if it makes a difference.

 

Hats off to those who don't freak out in cold weather. I haven't been out in -40 weather yet, but I've had no trouble at all when it got close to -30C. I see no reason to plug in the block-heater when using 20W40 oil, and I can't imagine any starting problems as a result.

I do agree that the interior heating sucks a bit when it gets really cold. I think the best remedy for this is to partially block the radiator, although I haven't yet found it necessary. I don't think grill-blocking works nearly as well, and it usually looks a bit howya doin in my opinion.

 

20-40 wt. Oil.? Greg. With those temps I would be using 0-20 wt.. Not sure how effective grill blocking is with the gen 3 as the coolent is heated via a heat exchanger in the exhaust system! Hal

 

i think keeping cold air from flowing through the radiator will reduce cooling off enough to make it worthwhile. there must be an ambient temp, below which, full upper blocking is safe. it hasn't been above freezing around here in almost two months, i'm fully blocked, but there are plenty of leaks around the foam.

 

OMG, my top grill is 50% blocked and bottom is 95% blocked. The coldest ever this winter was about 38f at around 6AM. Right now we're at 60-80f and I'm still 50/95%R blocked. My inverter coolant temp is usually around 10-15f above ambient temp. The hottest it ever gotten was 120f after 4 hours of driving. During short trips around town, the inverter has never gotten above 100f, usually in the 70's and 80's. I do notice that the inverter doesn't cool down as fast as the regular coolant.

 

Also don't block the lower grill at 100% because it throws the outside temp sensor off. It'll show a few degrees hotter than actual temperature. I leave the small block in front of the sensor unblocked. The sensor is only 1 maybe 2 degrees off at the most. Either that or relocate the temp sensor to the outside of the car.

 

try -5 at 6 am, and 20 at 3pm