Quote:
Originally Posted by Army
Sorry can I'd like to ask a general question about block heaters - are these fitted as standard to a Californian car? It seems a bit strange that they would bother - it is warm there - it ain't Canada.
Also isn't warming the block possibly a way of cooking your engine oil? I thought most engine pre-warming was done by heating the coolant...
(Sorry still learning - and I've never seen ANY car fitted with a pre-warming system)
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Block heater isn't NEARLY hot enough to do anything useful for vegetable oil. When you turn on the ignition after leaving it plugged in all night on a freezing night, the engine temp gauge just BARELY jumps off the "cold" pin. Corresponds to a degrees "F" temperature of 100-110 at most. Just enough to help the thing get started. Vegetable oil would need to be significantly warmer to be worth messing with.
I won't say "almost all" but I'd say that at least 50% of diesels you see are equipped with a heater. Large road tractors, Mercedes, Volkswagen, the big three diesel American pickup trucks... i'd say 50-75% have got an electric heater.
And you *have* seen a pre-warming system fitted... since almost every sedan/truck diesel in history uses glow plugs. It's just two different kinds of pre-warming... the quick-and-ready version (glowplugs) and the slow but more effective version (block heater) for those nights when it gets so cold the glowplugs themselves just can't get the job done.