Wanted 12v Heater

[BorniteIdentity]

Hola.

 

Heater currently not working on the Mercedes 190e.  Having bought 2 Sierra's in the month of April, I have no money left to remedy this.  It's also not going to be an issue through the summer.

SO - does anyone have one of those 12v ceramic things anywhere?  I know they're shit, but anything to stop my fanny freezing over would be great.  I've actually contemplated wetting myself for a bit of warmth.

 

Anyone?  Pretty please??!!

[UltraWomble]

Save your money they are shit

 

Not shite - SHIT

 

Ive just flogged a CampingGaz BlueCat space heater - get one of those if you can find one and use that to heat the car up before you drive - great for 20 odd miles of keeping something Almera sized toasty warm.

 

EDIT- Heat car up for 10 mins before you set off, then turn heater off - although no flame its prob not a good idea to use in a car whilst driving - plus OMG carbon monoxide poisoning

[BorniteIdentity]

I am fully versed in how crap they are.

 

But.

 

1 hour in a car at 2 degrees is miserable. Worse still at 4am.  I've no time to sit and warm the car up first, so figured anything is better than a punch in the face.

[fordperv]

Can you not wear a jumper or a big coat?

[BorniteIdentity]

Today I have a T-Shirt, Shirt, Jumper and Coat on (Parka).

Still cold because soft as shite southern jessie.

[oldcars]

Use the Sierra 

[BorniteIdentity]

Use the Sierra 

 

Ha. It's a little undergeared for the preferred 4am pace, but I will use it for time to time.  I'm just holding off until the start of May so I can get it taxed.  I don't want to pay a full month for 10 days enjoyment (6 cars currently taxed!)

[UltraWomble]

Hot water bottle 

Seriously, ive done that in the past.

[BorniteIdentity]

Genius

[spike60]

I've got one of those heated seat cover you can have but will probably cost as much to post as a new Ebay one is to buy. If you get one make sure the cigar lighter socket isn't permanantly live or it will flatten the the battery when you forget about it.....

[mrcitroen]

The ceramic heater I have is so shit the lighter plug gets warmer than the actual heater.

[Timewaster]

Hot water bottle is a good call. Could you get a sneaky refill at work for the drive home?

 

12v heater? Eating a tin of beans before you go to bed would be a more effective way of heating the car.

 

I used to sell them, usually to Land Rover owners for some reason and after having a dozen of them thrown back at me I would always get the customer to hold their hand in front of their mouth and go "HURRRRR" - there you are sir, that's what you can expect from that heater.

 

A few still bought them but would tell me I was right the next time they came in.

[Tamworthbay]

I had a small 12v fan heater when I had my old camper van with no heater at all. It cleared the windscreen even in January (well sort of, it looked like a port hole) and stopped my fingers from freezing. It was a tenner job off eBay.

[wuvvum]

Yep, I've got one of those and it's shit.  I used it in the Vel Satis when the entire HVAC system shat itself in the middle of winter - given ten minutes or so, it would clear a patch about 8" by 6" in a frosted-over windscreen.  Never made any discernible difference to the temperature of the cabin though.

 

I wonder if you could get an inverter powerful enough to run a 240v heater.  You'd probably have to wire it straight to the battery rather than plugging it into the fag lighter, obviously.

[Timewaster]

 

I wonder if you could get an inverter powerful enough to run a 240v heater.  You'd probably have to wire it straight to the battery rather than plugging it into the fag lighter, obviously.

Not a chance. Even the big expensive inverters we have in our mobile workshop vans struggle with a little travel kettle.

They will run lights and pumps and power tools but flatten a BFO battery in no time.

A fan heater would trip it straight away and even if it didn't, it would kill the battery and probably the alternator too.

[cros]

Ask a Vauxhall dealer to adjust your heater controls.

[cobblers]

A few years ago when I did a 35 mile commute in my old VW van with no heater, I used to put a fan heater in it on an extension cable, with a timer switch set for it to come on for an hour before I set off to work. It worked great!

 

If you got about 4 or 5 of them cheapo 12v heaters and wired them direct to the battery they might make a bit of a difference.

[mat_the_cat]

I wonder if you could get an inverter powerful enough to run a 240v heater.  You'd probably have to wire it straight to the battery rather than plugging it into the fag lighter, obviously.

 

The one in the van is rated at 1 kW continuous, 2 kW peak and will run a small radiant heater. That's with 16 sq. mm cable to a bank of 3 leisure batteries though. It's good to quickly take the chill off you for a short period (40 minutes or so) but no use for overnight heating.

[Dead_E23]

I keep a nice tartan travel rug in the 110 for this reason, and it works pretty well - even if it does feel a bit odd bowling along the M25 with a rug over my knees like I'm in a nursing home.

 

I think there's also a discarded ceramic heater in there somewhere, assuming that I haven't found it and binned it, that I'd unthinkingly bought hoping it would demist the screen.   It didn't.  The problem is that the amount of current you can draw from the lighter socket is fairly limited.  I think the heaters are generally 150w, so you might as well wire in a couple of headlamp bulbs and hope they'll heat the interior.  

[For Fiats Sake]

Another vote for shit.  I did a 150 trip back in the black panda without heating and after 5 miles bought one from halfords for stupid money.  It kept the chill off my left foot then right foot by moving it about the foot well.  That was one miserable trip home.  It states on it not to be used for more than twenty minutes at a time to prevent overheating - the cable and plug do get warm.  I make sure I take hat and gloves and a good coat on collections now.

 

[garethj]

Worth a look on ebay for a heated jacket?  I used one on the motorbike when commuting through the winter (and spring and autumn), it's like slipping into a dressing gown that's been on the radiator for an hour.

 

Pros: Keeps you toasty, can be worn under another coat if it's really really cold, can be resold to motorcyclist / microlight user when you've finished.

Cons: Won't demist the screen.

[cobblers]

The one in the van is rated at 1 kW continuous, 2 kW peak and will run a small radiant heater. That's with 16 sq. mm cable to a bank of 3 leisure batteries though. It's good to quickly take the chill off you for a short period (40 minutes or so) but no use for overnight heating.

 

I've cadged some industrial 24v inverters from work and I run my entire workshop off them, they'll run a 2kw fan heater easily, but they draw about 110 amps to do that.

Anyway a normal car heater pumps out the equivalent of 3000-5000w.

From a 12v battery you'd need hosepipe sized wire to handle the current, and it'd cost about £20 a foot, and even the best battery would be flat in half an hour.

 

Those little £10 ceramic "heaters" do maybe 120w tops because that's all they can steal from a ciggy lighter - the heater in them is equivalent to three tealight candles.

[RayMK]

Better to simply heat the ciggy lighter, put it in a suitable bag and slip it down your trousers or close to other extremities which need warming.

[andrew e]

A few years ago when I did a 35 mile commute in my old VW van with no heater, I used to put a fan heater in it on an extension cable, with a timer switch set for it to come on for an hour before I set off to work. It worked great!

I used to do this in my poxy Vectra CDTI - 5am wake up, walk to front door, switch on fan heater plug, have shower and shave, come out to toasty Vectra half hour later. It always took 10 minutes to get any heat, bloody thing.

[Ronnie L]

This is of no practical use in solving your problem, but I was reminded of a couple of solutions to car heating which I encountered in the early 70's. The first was in my 1961 Morris Minor which didn't have the optional extra heater. The previous owner had fitted a 12v heater which I seem to remember was bought from Gamages catalogue. It was wired through the ignition switch so it came on whenever the car was started. It was a silver metal box with a grille on the front suspended on brackets under the dash beneath the speedo. It contained a radiant element and was only slightly better than useless. The only time it generated any noticeable heat was on a journey on the Ayr by-pass in 1973 when the current it drew set fire to the ignition switch and some of the wiring behind the dash. Having extinguished the fire I was able to re-start the car by hot-wiring the fuse box. For the next couple of months I ran with no ignition key and turned on the ignition by lifting the bonnet and connecting a short piece of wire across the fuse box. Turning off the engine involved reversing this operation. Shite motoring indeed.

 

However the most innovative solution to interior heating came from a friend of mine who had a wartime (1944 I seem to remember) Willys Jeep (cheap as chips to buy in the late 60's). Some creative (or just poor) owner had built a wooden body onto it during the early 50's using the techniques and materials you would use back then to build a shed on your allotment. The whole thing was hand-painted in green to add to the horticultural theme. My pal used the Jeep for his daily commute and it was seriously cold with all the drafts that came in everywhere during a Scottish winter. His solution was to put in an old-style paraffin heater (in keeping with the greenhouse ambiance of the vehicle). It sat on the passenger footwell and he would light it 15 mins before departing. By the time he climbed in there was a suitable cosy fug of warm air and paraffin fumes which kept him warm during his 25 minute rural drive to work. Journeys of more than 30 mins would leave him a bit light-headed and were best avoided without stopping and getting out to breathe some fresh air. One v useful feature of this type of heating was that he could also cook his lunch on it (it was the type designed to allow pensioners to cook on), or indeed pull over on a journey and cook some grub at the roadside. A nice tin of soup was a great way of getting some heat into your body. This truly was shite motoring of a very high order.

[mat_the_cat]

The one in the van is rated at 1 kW continuous, 2 kW peak and will run a small radiant heater.

 

Just because I'm sad, I videoed it this morning! Notice the quality* brand of heater...

 

[Urko]

Some motors (Rover 75 I think) have a PTC heater in the HVAC box because they don't warm up quickly enough to produce any heat - no idea if they can be robbed from scrappers and used but it's certainly the kind of no-hope project I'd never finish.

[mrcitroen]

Some motors (Rover 75 I think) have a PTC heater in the HVAC box because they don't warm up quickly enough to produce any heat - no idea if they can be robbed from scrappers and used but it's certainly the kind of no-hope project I'd never finish.

For the same reason, my old Xantia Exclusive had a diesel fired webasto type pre heater. Nice toasty cabin very quickly but it eventually went tits up and stopped working. Great idea, but shit technology. No dealer or speacialst seemed able to fix it. Made by Erspacher from memory.

[Guest Hooli]

Worth a look on ebay for a heated jacket?  I used one on the motorbike when commuting through the winter (and spring and autumn), it's like slipping into a dressing gown that's been on the radiator for an hour.

 

Pros: Keeps you toasty, can be worn under another coat if it's really really cold, can be resold to motorcyclist / microlight user when you've finished.

Cons: Won't demist the screen.

 

 

Make your own (I keep meaning to do this)

 

http://www.carpe-tdm.net/ipb/index.php?showtopic=20311

[Dead_E23]

Eberspacher - full of expensive and hard to obtain bits, but the hot air cab heaters are popular with Tdi Defender owners due to the shit factory heater. I have one in my shed that I've never got round to fitting because there's always a backlog of things that have leaked oil, rusted or fallen off to deal with first.