I just realized I had both vehicles in an unheated garage before starting the test and that the starting temperature according to my Scangauge was 28 F. So all of my test results may be skewed. Also in the morning the test will be skewed the same way because the vehicles are garaged. They still need to warm up in below 0 outside air but the warmup will start from 28 F (or something like that) rather than at some temp below 0.

Oh well, it was not a very scientific test.

 

More scientific than most!

 

I use recirculate while the car is getting to temp and then switch over to fresh air. Seems to work well for me. I agree it's not good to use recirculate too much as the interior fogs.

 

I added some sound deadening to the car over the summer. The temps inside when sitting in the sun were improved greatly. As an added bonus, it heats up inside pretty quickly and I run the heat on low alot. I'm in Chicago and it's below zero now. My car is warmer inside now than it was when I picked it up in the spring and outside temps were in the 40*s.

 

I've never heard of adding sound deadening (other than "undercoating" years ago), can you describe more or less what you did?

 

Got my first cold snap this week in my fit. Temp was hovering in the low 30's high 20s F. Other than the engien took another couple minutes to reach operating temperature I had no problems with the heat. Once it got going the cab warmed up enough that I turned the temp down after a while even though I was runing defrost the whole time.

Cant speak to sub 0 temps though. I can only recall us reaching that low twice in the 20 odd years I've lived in this town so not much opportunity to test it.

Still seems sufficent to me although I lived with 2 winters of no heater in my previous car so requireing anything less than 3 layers of clothing being required is an improvement in my book.

 

Well, I got out this morning at 7 AM and the OAT was -13.7 F. I did not see much difference than in the previous test on both vehicles. The temp inside the garage and IAT (Intake air temp) on startup was +24 so that is really where the test started even though the outside air temp was -14. The only thing I noticed on both vehicles was it took the most time and distance to go from 180 to the thermostat temp of approx 191 / 193. As an example at the end of the first mile they were at 59 and 60 F. The second mile was 139 and 135. The Fit ran a few degrees lower at the one, two, 3 and 4 mile point.

I do not know what I proved. I started out looking to see if the Fit really ran noticeably colder than other vehicles. I based my measurement on engine coolant temps because that is where the Fit heater gets it's energy from. Both vehicles have 6 windows, but the Fit's are noticeably larger and I never measured the inside temperature.

So maybe the whole effort was a bust because I did not think it out thoroughly before I started.

My only conclusion was that they both perform similarly as far as warm up time and heat available inside.

If we get another good below 0 cold snap again, maybe I'll park them both outside and start over again with a better plan.

 

I put some window flashing in the spare tire Bay, in the doors, and under the front carpet. I also put some Eastwood hood/headliner foam on the roof underside (removed headliner). Then I later added some Eastwood audio foam to the doors. I was trying to improve the stock speakers sound and help the temps in the car in the summer as I Park outside and on a 60* day it would be miserable inside the car. The door stuff added bass. The rest seems to help with temps. No more right foot being hot from the catalytic converter and the car holds temps inside better. I didn't pull seats or anything too involved.

 

Interesting, sounds like you were successful!

 

Heater and seat heater together work great in chilly san diego.

 

The condensation happens almost immediately upon starting the car, and is quite heavy. I don't think it is from the 20 seconds I have been breathing in the car since it really starts after I turn on the blower. We have Weathertec mats front, middle, and back so it isn't wet carpeting. There are times when we don't drive the car for a week and it still happens just when starting the car and turning on the blower so it isn't moist air in the body of the car.

One trick for when you get condensation and the air outside is wet too (raining on a cold day) is to run the air conditioning and the heat too. the AC dries out the air and the heater warms it so you get warm, dry air across the window.

 

When you get into a car you are breathing moisture into it plus your clothing contains a lot of moisture being given off by your body. Initially the moisture hovers in the vicinity of your body but as soon as the car fans come on the moisture is blown around the car and hits the windshield where it quickly condenses.

If you leave the car door wide open after you've gotten in then the moisture should escape from the car and the effect on the windshield significantly decreased. Of course at some point you are going to want to get going and will have to close the door and if the air hasn't warmed up enough you'll have some condensation problem.

 

I have noticed more condensation when starting out compared to previous cars I've owned, but not bad enough to complain about, really.....I'll just let it idle for a few minutes with the defrost cranked while deciding what I wanna listen to on the way home from work (this is 07:15 a.m., beings as I work all night and car is parked outside).....it's somewhat annoying, but not bad enough to be a "problem"

 

My Fit is garaged, so maybe that makes a difference - but on really cold (subzero) days I just let it warm up inside the garage for five minutes or so (garage door partially open) with the heater on high. Works for me.

 

Note that if your garage is attached to your house this could leak carbon monoxide into your house. CO is a very small particle and can leach into the tiniest of cracks. If your garage is separate from your house then no worries.

 

I've been reading in the manual, and it's like others say, Heat up using recirculated air and once it gets to a good temp, switch to fresh air.

 

Let me note that my wife tried that stunt once. She was warming up her car in our attached garage with the door full open. There was enough leakage into the house to trip our CO detector.

Also if you warm it up in the garage there is a strong possibility of CO migrating into the inside of the car with the heater on.

Start it up and pull it outside to warm up. CO poisoning can take a year to recover from. I had it once. Treatment included several visits to a hyperbaric chamber.

 

In my Fit, the HVAC controls specifically encourage you to use defrost (a common winter mode) with fresh air intake only. A lot of condensation happens on the window if you don't. That's the problem with that strategy.

 

My Fit doesn't have the condensation issue fortunately. I regularly use the recirc to heat up, then switch to fresh air method. I have to use the defrost method if it's very wet outside though.

 

Interesting. It's not really an "issue"-it's a "feature" or I should say a result of the car's design decisions.