2018 Q7 Cabin Heat
 

Normal, in auto the heat blows out of the floor vents and the 2 outer dash vents.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...3c264eeabd.jpg
I do notice that the heater is pretty conservative for the first 10-15 minutes of a drive (I do have a heated garage so it might be tricking the algorithm, example: car starts at 60 ambient drops to 20 in five minutes)... that said, after 15 or so minutes of drive, it's almost too warm! Heat only from the floor and side vents in full auto (normal to keep hot air out of your face and drying your eyes out)... you can manually adjust the vent output if you desire... I'm wondering too if your footwell temperature is set to cooler (not sure if this is affected in heating mode or just cooling) Might want to see where it's set and if adjusting helps your situation. (assuming your Q has this feature, you mentioned 4Zone, not sure if the footwell temp is only on certain packages)

This has been a challenge with the Q7. It does take some time to heat up. This is a problem if your rides are less than 10 minutes.

I only set mine on Auto, and have never had an issue getting the cabin very toasty even during the cold polar vortex. Any system will only crank full air once the air its cranking is warm. This is evident in Auto mode, when the system starts blowing out after several minutes. If you do it manually, you are only blowing cold air initially until it warms up

FWIW... driving around today I was messing with the footwell temperature settings, definitely makes a difference...

Two days ago I was driving for about an hour (mostly in traffic though) and the heat gauge wasn't up more than 3 steps yet. Inside the cabin on "Hi" and high blowing and it was still cold (-26C outside).
I find the car takes a lot longer to warm up if the RPM is low and even when it gets high it takes quite a while to warm up inside the cabin compared to our other SUV. Mentioned it to the dealer when I took for service last time and they said it's normal. The list of things I'm not 100% happy with is just growing. I had higher expectation from the car.

How's your coolant level? If it's good... I'd say you have a thermostat that's stuck open (or a cooling loop issue)... What does the temp read in the VC (assuming you have it) when on the info display (gauges small, picture of the Q, temp readout below) mine will go to half on the left temp gauge (about 5 steps), then the oil temp slowly creeps up to about 190F (88C) on the info temp display, this can take 10-15 minutes when it's really cold) also, how about your radiator louvers, are they closed when you first start the car? (look through the grill, you you should see plastic louvers closed, not the aluminum fins of the A/C condenser.) Assuming you have the 3.0T (2.0T would in theory take longer to produce heat)... these smaller engines are much more efficient and product less waste heat of engines past... that said, they're engineered to come to optimal operating temperature as quickly as possible as to reduce emissions.

2.0T or 3.0T ?

It's the 3.0T. I didn't check the VC. I don't set it on Auto. I put the temp at Hi and set the rest manually as well. Car is never parked outside in very cold temperatures for extended periods. My house garage is heated and in the morning the gauge does come up to the mid-point fairly quickly but at work the garage is not heated and when the outside temp. is very cold like these days it takes a looooong time to get to mid point (90C). I haven't looked at radiator louvers to see if they are closed but will check tomorrow.

On a recent drive when we were in the worst of the cold I also noticed that the car was slow to warm up, and nothing resembling warm was coming from the vents - and it wasn't exactly warm coming from the floor vents either. I told myself, "Sure glad my rear end and my hands are toasty". ;) I had set the temp to 74 degrees, using the "Auto" setting, and when that didn't work I tried various manual settings, but still couldn't get the car to blow warm air that I could actually feel.

Haven't had a chance to experiment with it since then, and hoping I'll be able to figure things out, before the next Vortex hits. :eek:

Yep, I use the steering wheel and seat warmers. The seat warmer works great but the steering wheel never gets warm enough for me, just barely warm.
We have been in this cold snap (-20 to -30C) for a couple of weeks ...

When the temps came down to single digits (in fahrenheit - probably somewhere below 10C), the 3.0T warmed up in about 10min. However, all local roads, no highway, not a lot of idling on red lights, engine spent most of the time around 2K rpms. I suspect that if I started driving and got straight on the highway, it would take much longer to warm up. It's nice to have cold package for those days when the polar vortex visits the town.

Someone mentioned above the louvers in front of radiator: I don't see anything that opens/closes. It's in open position before I started and after I stopped (I can see radiator fins).
Here are two photos taken, one after 31 minutes of driving and still temp not reaching the 90C and another one after over an hour; it had reached the 90C on the gauge but I still had the heating temp at high and full blown.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...584b84baeb.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...5e169a0bdc.jpg

MoInEd, what year is your Q? Here's a shot through my grill.. louvers are closed...


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...733169baad.jpg

2018 (bought in Sept).

Now that I think about it, my Q7 (3.0) also takes a while to warm up - have to switch from Auto to manual Floor/forward vents in order to get it warm quickly. I had the same issue with the HVAC of my other car, when set to Auto - but it was a sedan and it would get there eventually. Q7 has a much larger salon so seems to take a lot longer.

BLIND. Shutter. "The official part name" in the square box...


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.aud...dc1d131ced.png

Ok, after took the car out of garage today stopped and looked at the shutters and they are closed. So it seems they work as supposed to. Also it warmed up much faster this afternoon at -18C outside. So maybe it just cant keep up with below -25C. A bit disappointing though.

That's interesting given that we are in the same city. What's your typical commute like? highway with high speeds? I'm typically in rush hour and lots of slow/stop/slow/stop and maybe the engine doesn't have good chance. Yet today I drove relatively easily and it sure wasn't at 90 with 10min (probably not even 15).

The heat in our Q7 works fine..

Now granted different vehicle however what you're describing seems very similar to what I was experiencing in my Allroad. I usually keep the temp in my cars set to 72-74 depending on how cold it is, but I would have to keep the temp setting on "High" for the first 45-50mins of driving especially after the first start of the day. And even after 45 mins if I adjusted the temp below 80 it would still blow cool (not cold) air..

Took it in for service and fortunately the technician was able to duplicate the issue exactly as I described it, when the temp was set to anything but "High" it would blow cool air.. He found that one of the coolant hoses was severely pinched, and he also noticed a slight coolant leak around the thermostat housing.. So he replaced the hose, installed a new thermostat, flushed and replaced the coolant and now everything is working as it should.. Finally I am getting heat with the temp setting in the 70's ..

Good Luck..

But how do you get air out of the middle vents? What does the light up button do?

Couple of notes OP:
1) Car doesn't necessarily reach 90C always. The temp you have on your display (~85C) is normal. It hovers between 85C (more power) up to 95C (more efficient). In colder weather and with the cabin heat on high, you will typically be keeping it at the lower ends of the scale.
2) Putting cabin heat on "HI" doesn't give more heat, it's just more fan. You still only get whatever the engine temp is at for heat. Audi is a bit different from other vehicles with auto climate control since in cold weather, it doesn't start ramping up the fan speed once the engine gets warm enough (others typically go almost to high). Audi keeps theirs lower to gentle warm the cabin, but it does feel a bit more "drafty". You might have better luck with either turning the temp up slightly so that the car forces a higher fan level vs full on HI.