What heating settings do you use to quicly heat your car?

ahfh1

ahfh1

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With the weather getting cold, what heating settings do you use to quickly warm up the car as soon as you get into it?

Mine is set as:

Auto: On
A/C (air con): Off
Temperature: 22.5 degrees

Not sure if this is the quickest way, and if air con should be left on to help automate climate control? Car seems to take too long (half an hour before it gets toasty).

Picture of current settings below:

 
I always find air con speeds the heating process up and just max it on temp and strength, until it starts to feel hot then I'll knock the auto on at 20.5 degrees on both sides
 
In cold weather it will take longer for the car to heat up, especially a diesel car so asking the car to produce more heat through the heater means it'll take even longer to reach a welcoming temperature to produce cabin heat. Keep it at 20c until the coolant reaches 70> then bring aircon heat up.
 
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Raising the temp will not heat the car faster - it's climate control, the whole point is to leave it at the temp you actually want and leave the car to sort itself out.

Firstly I never switch the AC off - it's on all the time although I usually leave it in Eco mode FWIW. Even when it's not warm, the AC helps suck moisture out of the air which helps demisting and allows the air to warm up faster.

Secondly, half an hour?! My 1.4COD starts producing warm air from the vents after literally five minutes.
 
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Grow a pair and man up till the engines warmed up then put the heating on, that's what I do with a fleece on. Saves having cold air coming till its warm.
I use a screen cover to stop frost normally too
 
Andy1608 said:
Grow a pair and man up till the engines warmed up then put the heating on, that's what I do with a fleece on. Saves having cold air coming till its warm.
Click to expand...

See this is what I don't get - you don't "put the heating on" with climate control. I just leave mine set to 21C all the time and, on a cold morning it won't blow air of any kind out until there's some warmth available from the engine.
 
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Climate control should be left in Auto mode. It specifically says in the manual that turning the temperature up won't make the cabin heat up any quicker. Leave it set at your normal temperature and in Auto mode and the car will keep the fan speed low until the engine is warmed up enough to provide hot air, at which point the climate control will raise the fan speed and bring the cabin up to temperature. There is no quicker way to do it!

If the windscreen is fogged up then you can set the front screen de-mister on, in combination with the A/C being on this quickly clears the screen (even without heat from the engine).

My climate is constantly set at 20 in Auto mode with AC on, apart from setting the windscreen de-mister I never change it. This is how it was designed to be operated.
 
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I leave mine Auto+A/C ON all the time 21c ('normal').

If its cold, its most likely frosty as well.
So I then leave it on AUTO+A/C at 21c (normal), but put front and rear demist on / heated mirrors on / heated seats on full - till it warms and clears to drive.
Then turn everything back to 'normal' once its clear (and turn seats down or off).
 
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Just been out for a short drive. Outside temp 1.5deg. Climate control on auto. Distinctly warm air coming through dash vents within 2 mins driving. Think it would be hard to improve on that with an infernal combustion engine.
 
Can I ask for the point of leaving a/c on especially when you want warm air? I don't understand what the benefit is, especially when it's just working the engine harder and running the a/c gas out.


Just curious
 
DickiePhitt said:
Just been out for a short drive. Outside temp 1.5deg. Climate control on auto. Distinctly warm air coming through dash vents within 2 mins driving. Think it would be hard to improve on that with an infernal combustion engine.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm amazed how quickly mine warms up, especially compared to my old diesel which took an absolute age.
 
J4MMYz said:
Can I ask for the point of leaving a/c on especially when you want warm air? I don't understand what the benefit is, especially when it's just working the engine harder and running the a/c gas out.
Click to expand...

AC sucks moisture out of the air, lowering humidity. The benefits of this are that it helps immensely with demisting in the winter, especially when hot bodies get into a cold car and breath starts steaming up the windows, and also allows the heating to work more efficiently as the air is dryer.

The AC should only work as hard as it needs to and can be left on all the time. If you look in the efficiency menu on the DIS, you can see how much fuel the AC is using at any given time.
 
J4MMYz said:
Can I ask for the point of leaving a/c on especially when you want warm air? I don't understand what the benefit is, especially when it's just working the engine harder and running the a/c gas out.
Click to expand...

Climate control is not just a/c. as I understand it. There are additional sensors and a degree of intelligence so if it can detect, eg conditions when a rapid warm up is needed, or when the a/c compressor should be run to reduce humidity and the consequential misting up in winter. In summer it may initially recirculate the cooled air to speed up the a/c process.
 
DickiePhitt said:
Climate control is not just a/c. as I understand it. There are additional sensors and a degree of intelligence so if it can detect, eg conditions when a rapid warm up is needed, or when the a/c compressor should be run to reduce humidity and the consequential misting up in winter. In summer it may initially recirculate the cooled air to speed up the a/c process.
Click to expand...

Yep it's quite clever. It also uses light sensors to judge the amount of sunlight entering the car as the greenhouse effect will cause the interior to warm a lot more under such conditions, even though the exterior temp is unchanged.
 
So am I right in saying, if a/c is on with climate control... It's not always on? So it will only turn on when it senses moisture in the winter and obviously to cool the car down in the summer?

If that's right, you've just blown my mind. I've never had a car with CC so that sounds brilliant.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Yep it's quite clever. It also uses light sensors to judge the amount of sunlight entering the car as the greenhouse effect will cause the interior to warm a lot more under such conditions, even though the exterior temp is unchanged.
Click to expand...

I wonder if its the same light sensor that alters instrument lighting level. Once you have a few sensors you can use a few lines of code to get them to input to all sorts of clever things - like the abs reporting underinflated tyres, aledgedly.
 
Air Con always on 365 days (wife's side 72 degF, my side 68 degF); Auto always on unless specifically demisting screen. When defrosting before getting in and driving away, have everything on in the usual way, plus rear demister and door mirror demisters, but NEVER turn the heated seats on if there's nobody sitting on them ... the instruction manual is very specific on this point!
 
J4MMYz said:
So am I right in saying, if a/c is on with climate control... It's not always on? So it will only turn on when it senses moisture in the winter and obviously to cool the car down in the summer?

If that's right, you've just blown my mind. I've never had a car with CC so that sounds brilliant.
Click to expand...

Correct. "AC on" is really just "enabled", it will use it when it deems it necessary. Turning it off overrides this and will permanently disengage the air con compressor.

The air con system is not designed to be left unused / off as the seals dry out and this actually leads to an increase risk of coolant leak than if you used it regularly.

If you have Climate Control then "Auto" with AirCon enabled should be the mode you leave it in for 95% of the time.
 
Thanks guys I'll be sure to keep it on
 
DickiePhitt said:
I wonder if its the same light sensor that alters instrument lighting level.
Click to expand...


Different.

The sunlight sensor is IR and on the top of the fascia.

The instrument ambient light sensor is non-IR and in the instrument pack.

The auto lights sensor is separate again and is in the windscreen behind the rear view mirror.
 
So it sounds like the ideal settings should be:

Auto: On
A/C (air con): On
Temperature: 22.5 degrees (or whatever is comfortable for you)

And also not to be tempted to whack up the temp to something crazily high like say 28 degrees when you first get into the freezing car, as the air con will be busily sucking out moisture.

As well as not worrying about no hot air coming through the fans straight away, as eventually the fans will kick in once the engine is warm enough to blow in warm air, rather than blowing cold air onto you.
 
I must admit, in both cars, I always leave the climate set to auto but the a/c off, as I dislike the way the car seems to fill with moisture once you've parked it up after a journey with the a/c running. I use the a/c on hot days to cool the car down, but tend to leave a window cracked open to allow the moisture to disperse.
 
I'm usually auto on, AC on, although I do (or did till now) wind the temp right up in a vain attempt to eak the temp up asap, despite knowing pulling any heat through the system keeps the engine cooler.

Having had the car a few weeks now, this morning was the first time I had to de-ice it, as Jack had done his work last night, after heavy rain. Anyway compared to my 8P the warm air was flowing within a couple of minutes which I was mega impressed with. I understand the car has an aux heater - without the handbook to hand, I am wondering if this is an electric heater which boosts temp during the early minutes?
 
Is this not what enabling the supplementary/auxiliary heater in the aircon menus is for? i.e it uses an electrical heater to help heat the cabin whilst waiting for the engine to heat up?
 
I'm looking forward to the delivery of my e-tron in a couple of weeks time and hope to try out the remote heating function. Set the temperature and time on a smartphone or MMI and let it do the business. Supposed to work in summer also with the A/C.

Just bear in mind that it should be plugged in so that it avoids draining the battery :)
 
Whether the AC is on or off it won't actually work when the temperature drops below something like 5 degrees C I believe.
This is because the evaporator would ice up and potentially cause damage to the system.
On the diesels they have a supplementary heater that is an electrical heater that takes about 80A so when the glow plugs have gone off and there is sufficient power available it will be switched on. This can be switched on and off in the MMI at least on the A4 anyway Can't imagine it's much different on the A3.

Karl.
 
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So much useful info in this thread!

So what do we determine is the best setting for use on a cold, frosty morning (inc. demisters) when starting the car?

Will look to implement this when I'm back home.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Raising the temp will not heat the car faster - it's climate control, the whole point is to leave it at the temp you actually want and leave the car to sort itself out.

Firstly I never switch the AC off - it's on all the time although I usually leave it in Eco mode FWIW. Even when it's not warm, the AC helps suck moisture out of the air which helps demisting and allows the air to warm up faster.

Secondly, half an hour?! My 1.4COD starts producing warm air from the vents after literally five minutes.
Click to expand...

quick question Vertigo1.... how do you switch off Eco setting on the AC?
 
desertstorm said:
On the diesels they have a supplementary heater that is an electrical heater that takes about 80A so when the glow plugs have gone off and there is sufficient power available it will be switched on. This can be switched on and off in the MMI at least on the A4 anyway Can't imagine it's much different on the A3.
Click to expand...


Must remember to have a look for this. Useful info, cheers.
 
It's under Car>Systems>A/C. Supplementary heater can be set to auto or off
 
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desertstorm said:
Whether the AC is on or off it won't actually work when the temperature drops below something like 5 degrees C I believe.
This is because the evaporator would ice up and potentially cause damage to the system.
On the diesels they have a supplementary heater that is an electrical heater that takes about 80A so when the glow plugs have gone off and there is sufficient power available it will be switched on. This can be switched on and off in the MMI at least on the A4 anyway Can't imagine it's much different on the A3.

Karl.
Click to expand...

Karl is correct!
AC wont work below 5 degress. With supplementary heater turned on it warms up within 5 minutes.
Just leave it on 21 degrees and it will be warm as quick as possible. no need to faff around with settings
 
CCWS3 said:
So what do we determine is the best setting for use on a cold, frosty morning (inc. demisters) when starting the car?
Click to expand...

That's what the demist setting is for. It's the left-most button and is marked either "Front" or "Max" depending on how old the car is. I usually start the car and then flick this and the heated rear screen on while I scrape the ice off.

illingworth22 said:
quick question Vertigo1.... how do you switch off Eco setting on the AC?
Click to expand...

Quick press of the big AUTO button on the left toggles it off or on :)
 
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Another interesting item relating to using the car from cold....

My car is normally in the garage so it does not effect me, but on my wife's A1 which stands on the drive, we pour warm (not boiling) water over the screen to remove any ice. This in turn warms the screen and it is much less like to steam up again when she drives away. She has A/C on her A1 but it is not Climate Control.

We have been doing this for many years and have never had any problems at all. The other thing I noticed whilst on holiday in Switzerland last winter when it was very snowy is that all the drivers lift their wipers off the screen when the car is parked outside over-night to stop them freezing on to the screen. I also saw then using the warm water technique.
 
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