--- In toyota-prius@egroups.com, "Williams, Sam" <swilliam@h...>
wrote:
> That's not my experience. I keep the fan at "auto" or "off" so
> that it doesn't blow cold air at me. The electric heater is either
> wimpy or not working.
> Sam
>

Conditions necessary to get electric heat:
- Coolant temperature low
- Desired temperature set high enough relative to outside
(enough not specified, but 70 seems to work).
- Outlet in FOOT, FOOT/DEF, or DEF mode (neither in-your-face mode
allows electric heat). If DEF mode, previous condition (relative
temperature) is not a necessary condition.
- Blower not turned off.
- DC/DC converter happy (not too many other things needing 12V.)

I've found that by meeting the above conditions I get noticable heat
in about 1 min. with high 20's outside temp. Caveat: in that one
minute I have a noticable altitude drop, so usually get a full regen
point (sometimes only half).

If I don't have passengers, I will usually set the blower to
FOOT/FACE to avoid using the electric heater. I figured it was
wasteful to use it if I could live without it. But I notice it
doesn't seem to affect 1st 5 min. mileage all that much and might
even improve it slightly, so maybe it helps warm up the NiMH battery
faster. I can't be sure I've noticed a difference though.

So just think, on cold, foggy winter days when you have to use full
DEF mode 1st thing on a cold morning, you get to run the AC pump and
the electric heater on a cold engine. Say bye-bye to MPG!

For those of you with "New Car Features", these conditions are
described in a more confusing manner on page 157.

Robert Snyder
NJ-PIKACHU