
A car is one of the most important things you own in your life. You use it almost every day as your daily transport. It can come in handy at desperate times as well. For instance, it’s very useful for winter or cold days. You may have heaters in your home, but it’s essential that you have a good functioning heater in your car. Now that you have a good heater, it’s time to know How to Use Car Heater in Winter effectively and efficiently and not destroy it or the car while using it. Because using it wrong may end up sucking your car’s lifespan.
The Process of Using a Car Heater in Winter – Sometimes, not as simple as it seems
Even before we start discussing how to use the heater in your car, let’s first take a note that we should never just turn on the heater right after starting the car. Some people might say that operating the heater of your car is very simple and it’s not as complex that you would start worrying about it.
Although, it’s true that the functionality and using your car’s heater is easy, it’s not that simple sometimes either, especially in winter.
You know, you can compare the engine of a car to a human brain. When you wake up in the morning, your brain needs some time to warm up and do some light things before seizing the day. The engine of a car also needs to warm up when you start it up for the first time in the morning.
You can’t turn on the heater right after you’ve started the car. If you do this, then the engine won’t have enough time to warm itself up before warming up the interior of the car. And the gas that comes in with the warm air is very detrimental to the human body.
So, that’s two birds with one stone. You need to give the engine some time to warm up. Driving the car for a few minutes will surely warm up the engine even quicker. And, as stated before, this criteria is very important on winter days when the engine almost freezes up.
Using the controls
Sometimes, the controls of your car heater may seem pretty confusing and rather intimidating. But, it’s actually very easy to use as you will find out in this article. You don’t need to worry about pushing any wrong buttons because you won’t be able to.
All the options are nicely labeled, named, and even colored sometimes. There are mainly three options that operate the car heater. And, honestly, these are the only things that you need to be worrying about. First of all, the temperature which sets a temperature for the heater.
Secondly, the fan speed which controls how fast or how slow the fans will spin. And finally, the direction of the air. These things are very intuitive as you can tell from the naming. They do exactly what their names suggest. The first option: temperature, controls how hot or cold the air is going to be ejected. This is usually a dial or a wheel.
But modern-smart cars these days have a touchscreen instead of a dashboard and physical buttons, knobs, and dials. If you have a smart car, then operating your heater isn’t an issue for you. But, for the majority of us, the first dial controls the temps. Usually, they have colored icons so that it’s easier to understand. For example, red for warm and blue for cold.
The second one was the fan speed. This dial or button controls the speed the fans will be spinning at. And finally, the third one controls the direction the fans will spin towards. There are usually three options on the direction control.
These options are normally a graphic of a sitting passenger. One for the head area, one for the body, and another one for the legs. Sometimes, there are more than just these three options. Often, they mix and match these options with each other.
For example, there may be an option that says “Head & Feet”. And if these things confuse you, then you can simply manually change the direction of the air just by moving the vents with your hands.
There are some cars that also have individual options for the driver’s side and passenger’s side for the direction of the air, which can be very helpful sometimes.
Clearing the windshield
On a winter or cold day, the windshield of a car tends to fog up which can make it very hard to see the road that you are driving on. Driving on a winter day or a snowy day is hard as it is. And not to mention how dangerous. On top of that, the windshield fogging up isn’t very helpful either.
That’s where the demister or defroster button comes in. This comes with almost all modern cars. This button operates a vent near your windshield which clears the fog on your it that is caused by cold or rain.
There may also be a demisting button or dial or knob or wheel or whatever for the rear windshield. So, you can defog your windshields without even getting out of your seat. This may be one of the most important and most underrated features of a car that should be mainstream.
Other than the windshields, some cars also have the option to direct the heater’s air towards the side windows. That way, all of your car stays clean and clear.
Conclusion
A car is an electronic machine. And just like all the other electronic things, it needs to be treated carefully. Without safety precautions, you can easily destroy your car, even if it’s something as simple as using the heater of your car.
Just as using a heater in the car keeps your body warm, it also protects the car bed cover from getting too cold. As a result, you will be tireless on long journeys.
It will help if you remember. Never turn off the engine unless your car battery is a heavy-duty AGM or Dual Purpose Battery. The car heater will quickly drain your battery; thus, it loses power when it needs to start the engine. Moreover, it can damage your car’s battery.
So, keeping in mind all the precautions and techniques, you can pretty safely and easily use your car’s heater on a cold day to warm up your feet and also your whole body. Following all the steps, you can save up your car’s mileage and lifespan from being destroyed. Just warm up the engine before using the heater and be efficient while using it.