Remote heating question

[jamerg]

Hi folks

Well, the temperature has dropped here in the UK. I have switched off my car's Wi-Fi because of the security concerns, so for the first time this morning have tried to set up the remote heating using the onboard system in the car rather than the app.

Couple of things weren't clear to me:

1. In the app you could set the heating for either 10 minutes or 20 minutes as I recall. I could not see that doing it in the car gave you those options. If you use the on-board car system does the car heat for 10 minutes or 20 minutes?

2. I've always been a bit confused about the options of pressing "AC", "Heater" or the windscreen icon. Does anyone know what the difference is between pressing "AC" or "Heater" in particular?

Thanks in advance!

 

[user 816]

Selecting AC (air conditioning) will make the car go colder.. its for summer or hot days when you want the car to be cooled before you get in.

Windscreen turns the heating on and directs it out the top vents / base of windscreen, this is the most useful for icy days to get the glass defrosted quickly will also warm the car.

Heating turns all regular heating out the vents. Best for non icy but chilly days to warm it up. Does also work to defrost the windows if you set a long enough time and its not too frozen up.

 

[SolarBoy]

I've given in an re-enabled the app ... have the timer set to run defrost just before the school run.

Though I have the problem that before the school run this afternoon needed to run the aircon ... ah nope can't do that as the stupid timer on has one setting.

Not sure which is best, defrost or heat for the morning?

 

[user 816]

I've given in an re-enabled the app ... have the timer set to run defrost just before the school run.

Though I have the problem that before the school run this afternoon needed to run the aircon ... ah nope can't do that as the stupid timer on has one setting.

Not sure which is best, defrost or heat for the morning?

If you look out and it look like a hard frost (or a light frost and you don't have much time) use defrost to target the windows so you can drive off

If its just nippy and not frosty use heat setting as it will make the interior toasting enough you can drive off without a coat on.

This to me is really useful to me as its not long before I am heading onto the motorway for quite a while and I don't want to be driving in a coat but its dangerous to try and take it off at 60mph!

 

[PHEVHappy]

Up until this morning my timed heating was working great, i had it set to come on for 20 mins before i set off to work which took about 2 to 3 miles off my range which i can live with. However i was messing with the timings on my phone and now when i send the info to the car it says completed but upon trying to return back to the home screen the app says timings not sent. the phone is connected and was working fine before. has anyone any ideas as to what i have done wrong?

thank you

 

[NightPHEVer]

So as jamerg did originally ask and I'm now asking again - for what period of time does the heating come on if set via the MMCS and not the phone ap? There doesn't appear to be any option to set the amount of time it stays on within the MMCS. Also, does the car have to be plugged in to the mains for this to work, or work to it's best efficiency? I have a Rolec 32amp charger which is usually plugged in, but not always, as I don't do many miles.

Thing is, I don't have a smart phone. I'm way ahead of the curve (man) and bang on trend, and only have a dumbphone. So either I'm a 'celebrity' and don't want people hassling me all the time, or I just actually choose not to have a smart phone. I see Seat are promoting the idea of not having a 'keyfob' at all - just a smartphone. The writing's on the wall, the slippery slope etc....

 

[jaapv]

Hi folks

Well, the temperature has dropped here in the UK. I have switched off my car's Wi-Fi because of the security concerns, so for the first time this morning have tried to set up the remote heating using the onboard system in the car rather than the app.

Couple of things weren't clear to me:

1. In the app you could set the heating for either 10 minutes or 20 minutes as I recall. I could not see that doing it in the car gave you those options. If you use the on-board car system does the car heat for 10 minutes or 20 minutes?

2. I've always been a bit confused about the options of pressing "AC", "Heater" or the windscreen icon. Does anyone know what the difference is between pressing "AC" or "Heater" in particular?

Thanks in advance!

Pressing "heater" is different from pressing "AC". If you have the AC at default=off (15 sec button press), it will not activate the AC.
The defrost button is the only way to set the system to the windscreen vents only.

 

[jdsx]

So as jamerg did originally ask and I'm now asking again - for what period of time does the heating come on if set via the MMCS and not the phone ap? There doesn't appear to be any option to set the amount of time it stays on within the MMCS. Also, does the car have to be plugged in to the mains for this to work, or work to it's best efficiency? I have a Rolec 32amp charger which is usually plugged in, but not always, as I don't do many miles.

Thing is, I don't have a smart phone. I'm way ahead of the curve (man) and bang on trend, and only have a dumbphone. So either I'm a 'celebrity' and don't want people hassling me all the time, or I just actually choose not to have a smart phone. I see Seat are promoting the idea of not having a 'keyfob' at all - just a smartphone. The writing's on the wall, the slippery slope etc....

I presume the default period is 10 minutes. When the PHEV first came out in the UK, you could only set it for 10 minutes, even with the app - the 20 and 30 minute options were added at the time of a software update. (Of course they may have altered the default on subsequent model years.) It doesn't have to be plugged into the mains to work, but obviously it will reduce your range if not plugged in (in fact, it will even if plugged in, but only by a small amount...) I don't think 'efficiency' is affected - the heater uses 4kW of power (so for 10 minutes, approx 0.67kW), and if you have it plugged in, it will attempt to 're-fill' the battery, but only at 16A (so a bit less than 4kW!).

 

[SolarBoy]

Does anyone know if Heat/Defrost uses the aircon to dry the air?

Heat seems to cause condensation on the inside, but Defrost doesn't seem to?

Can't really test reliably as the UK weather is different from day to day.

 

[ChrisMiller]

I have the aircon off by default, but the symbol comes on when defrosting/demisting the front window, so I think the answer to your question is that it does use aircon.

 

[jaapv]

Does anyone know if Heat/Defrost uses the aircon to dry the air?

Yes it does

 

[NightPHEVer]

Thanks jdsx, your understanding of electricity is clearly a lot better than mine. I'm just about to find out how well the pre-heat works as it's hopefully just come on in my garage. My PHEV is a 2014 'white-lens' model. I must attempt to get that information on all my posts as clearly the newer 'red-lens' models are different.

Update: yes, I can confirm it's 10 minutes. This will come as no surprise to anybody that knows this already! Very handy for me as my car is in a garage so doesn't have any ice-on-screen difficulties to overcome. I would think if it was outside then 10 minutes might not be enough so maybe the phone ap is a good idea. Also, of course, using the MMCS means you can only set a pre-determined time which might not be the time you're gonna need it.

 

[geoffshep69]

Does anyone know if Heat/Defrost uses the aircon to dry the air?

Heat seems to cause condensation on the inside, but Defrost doesn't seem to?

Can't really test reliably as the UK weather is different from day to day.

I noticed that this morning as well, having only started to use the preheating this week.

Temperature was 4C outside, and when I went to the car it looked like the windscreen was half defrosted whereas the windscreen on my wife’s car was completely clear. On getting in to the PHEV it transpired that the ‘half defrosted’ look was because the condensation was on the inside of the windscreen.

Kind of defeats the purpose of preheating, as when I started to drive off I then had to run the heater anyway to clear the inside of the windscreen.

Is the suggestion that I use the app to set it to the ‘defrost windscreen’ icon rather than the ‘heat’ option ?

 

[anko]

Yes!