I've always thought it would be cool if cars had electrical heating elements in the climate-control system, of course realizing the trouble of actually making it work.

Well, the other week, I bought a scanner for our 06.5 Jetta. Doing some online searches to investigate what the scanner can do, I found out that North America Jettas have a 1000W electrical heater but it is disabled by software. It costs you a couple of MPG in the winter, but you get heat in seconds, instead of in three to five minutes.

Before the use of the "free" heat from the cooling system became the standard, many cars had gasoline-fueled heaters. The most successful of these after market heaters was the South Wind. Most reliable estimates was that its use cost about 1 mpg.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Odd that VW would go to the trouble of making and installing something, only to disable it. I had a co-worker at a former job who was messing around with electric heat in a VW Bug, but the electrical system wasn't up to it.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

The Prius has a ceramic electric (PTC) heater, two actually. I think they are about 500W each.

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1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra

I believe Chevy pickup trucks have electric boosters in the heating system starting in 1988.

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-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

VW never made ancillary heaters..all of them were aftermarket.

I bought a used Stewart Warner heater for a 68 VW and retrofitted for mine...Super Beetle gas tank resides where the heat would enter.

Actually worked pretty well, but given it's age, kinda scary. leaky chamber allowed the unit to "backfire", and pedestrians would scamper when I was stopped at a light, thinking it was gunfire!

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

A friend of mine claims that back in the 50s, his brother installed a wood stove in his Chevy when the regular heater quit working.

My dad and his brothers used to tell stories about using hot bricks on the floorboards of cars in the '30's.

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Palangi

2004 C240 Wagon 203.261 Baby Benz
2008 ML320 CDI Highway Cruiser
2006 Toyota Prius, Saving the Planet @ 48 mpg
2000 F-150, Destroying the Planet @ 20 mpg



TRUMP .......... WHITEHOUSE
HILLARY .........JAILHOUSE
BERNIE .......... NUTHOUSE
0BAMA .......... OUTHOUSE