In the few weeks that I have been a Civic Hybrid Owner I' used my heater one time. Those who know me personally know I make some quirky decisions on how and when I choose to reduce the energy footprint of my cars. One of the areas I found I could reduce waste in my car was from the heater core. In a hybrid the engine works less than a conventional car, and they have smaller engines, which means that the car has to work harder to stay at operation temperature and still satisfy the driver's demand for heat.
WARNING: the following information may be too technical, if you're reading this during a commercial break during "Family Guy" skip to the last paragraph
So why have I chosen to forgo my heater and aren't I uncomfortable? I found that my seat heaters provide enough heat for me while the car warms up, and that when the car does warm up it will leak heat through the vents before it opens the valve in the radiator if the cabin temperature is below whatever the dial was set to before the system was turned off in my case 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
The one time I needed the heater in this past few weeks was this morning, I was stuck in stop and go city traffic, the engine coolant temperature dropped from normal (193-195 degrees Fahrenheit in my car) to 160 degrees and so the car wasn't leaking any heat into the car, outside the temperature was 40 degrees and my seat heater was in an idle state, it seems to cycle on and off, so with practically no heat in 40 degrees I caved and turned on the heater. The engine coolant temperature dropped to 140 degrees in about two minutes, and my fuel economy dropped from respectable to levels I normally only see when the car is warming up.
During my normal freeway commute and during modest city traffic where the seat heater is cycling on and off and the HVAC system is leaking out just enough heat the driver's seat is extremely comfortable and I know I'm not wasting extra heat in my heater core. I assume the passenger seat is comfortable too, but the seat heater doesn't seem to turn on without a weight in it, I'll have to try it out when I get some free time.
If I carry any passengers in the rear seat I will take the hit in fuel economy because I'm a nice guy and when you carry extra people the measurement of people miles per gallon is important. People MPG is your miles per gallon times the amount of people in the vehicle. This is why a minivan with seven passengers getting 25 miles per gallon can be better than a hybrid with one person getting 60 MPG, 175mpg vs 60mpg.
I'd like to hear what you think, please tell me if you think this is a tiny bit extreme or if I'm making some sense using the comment function below.
Kacey Green
for the Midlands Hybrid Club
"Promoting the spread of clean personal transportation technologies."
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
James
said:
 |
Radiator block One simple thing you can do to help keep your car up to operating temperature in colder weather is to block off part of the radiator. I slip a piece of Coroplast (used campaign signs should be readily available next week :-)) between the radiator and A/C cooler of my Insight. You will see many big trucks doing the same thing in the winter, and I used to own an old Volvo that had a window shade-like arrangement on the radiator, and a cord running to the driver's seat. |
Kacey Green
said:
 |
Re: Grill Block I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get it done with my grill shape, as its much different from the 06-08 that others have done sucessfully, and my car has to look as close to stock as possible. I haven't looked to see about behind the bumper but in front of the radatior. Can Coroplast hold up against about 200 degrees farenheit? |
| Pre-owned 2007 Civic Hybrid available< Prev | Next >Crystal Fusion |
|---|
