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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.
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 water 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
02-10-2019, 04:53 PM
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.
