Why does my car take so long to warm up and blow cold air?
An engine that takes 30 minutes to reach operating temperature and drops back down to the cold line at higher speeds fails to build enough heat for the cabin heater to work properly. This leaves drivers shivering and wondering if their vehicle will function safely in freezing temperatures.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Replacing the thermostat
- 2Checking engine temperature with a laser thermometer gun
- 3Inspecting whether the thermostat was omitted or left stuck open
- 4Running the heat in traffic
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Truck now rides the Cold line on the gauge when going above 60kmh or 35mph ish”source ↗
“Is it a concern? How will it perform in negative temperatures?”source ↗
“After some driving, I realized the the car was taking a considerable amount of driving time to get the temperature. The gauge stayed at 1/4-1/3 towards the cold side. After 30 min it would be right under the halfway mark. The heater does not get hot either.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5Why does my car overheat only when idling?
- 6Why is one coil pack tube hotter than the others?
- 3Why does my car stall when I step on the gas?
- 51Why does my car make a loud rattle when starting the engine?
- 16Engine misfires and RPM surging when driving uphill
- 4Why does my car go into limp mode after warming up?