During the winter, the cold makes your car’s heater more important than anything else. What you might not know is that cars have become more efficient over the years and don’t need as much help heating up. Still, there are a few things you can do to get warm in your car as fast as possible.
Download Your Car’s App
If your car was made in the past five years or so, there’s a decent chance that the manufacturer created an app for it on your smartphone. It’s possible that the app has the ability to start your car remotely.
However, letting your car idle for more than 30 seconds will just waste gas, and the engine will only blow cold air for those first 30 seconds anyway. So why do it? It heats up the engine oil. It won’t make your heater blow warm air, but it will help your engine.
If You Want to Get Warm, Just Start Driving
Nothing else gets your heater working faster than driving around at moderate speeds. Because of the oil issue we mentioned above, you should avoid hard acceleration until the temperature needle reaches the middle of the gauge. That means the engine is properly warm and is operating at peak efficiency.
Don’t let your car sit idling in the driveway. Just get in and go, without accelerating hard for the first few minutes. That’s the fastest way to get the heater working.
If You’re Idling for More Than 10 Seconds, You’re Burning Money
During the winter months, you’ll want to keep the car running at long red lights and in standstill traffic. However, idling degrades your engine over the long-term. Plus, it takes more energy to leave it idling than it does to turn off the engine and restart it later.
If you’re super cold and absolutely must let it idle, turn on the air recycling feature on your climate control. That will reuse the already hot air in your car, rather than the quickly cooling air of your idling engine.
Conclusion
Those are our tips on heating up your car as quickly as possible. Share your own pointers on our Facebook post and come by our service center if your car needs a tune-up.