How to Install an Auxiliary 12V Car Heater in Under 10 Minutes 

Thanks for the support! I'm glad you find these videos informative and/or entertaining.

***** Great idea thanks! What do you think of running a battery separator to charge a secondary battery (or pack) to power an inverter that is feeding power to an inline heating element mounted in the cars cooling system? i know you would need a hell of a battery pack to feed that and then be able to heat the engine up reason why i think like this is because i do not have any outlets near my car and maybe it would work and in worst case use a dimmer to cut down the power to the element or a capacitor in series with the element to limit the current? Keep up the good work always fun to follow your projects!

Hagis2k An idling car puts 10kw to 20kw of heat into the engine/coolant when idling cold. You can't compete with that with any electrical heater. If you want to warm the block up off of battery power before starting it you're looking at 0.5kwh of power which is more than what is reasonable to store in a battery without wearing it out quickly. If you have difficulty starting the vehicle when cold I would recommend instead to put a heat blanket around the starting battery and run that for a little white which will about double the cranking amps of the battery or, better yet, just get the best battery you can find and fire it up when everything is cold.

Gadget Addict My battery bolts weren't long enough and this was a quick 10 minute project is the short answer.The long answer is that connecting directly to the alternator reduces losses in the wiring between the alternator and battery, and since I don't plan to run the heater with the car not running (which would be very hard on the battery) I don't care about the losses between the battery and the inverter.

Very resourceful....haha

hey Ray, my heater core went in my jeep also so i totally get where youre coming grom lol.wondering if this is still working for you? i havent watched whole video bc of being lrt down after watching and buying so many videos and products lol

yes it works good just dont keep it wide open you can use high and like 3 quarter thermostate . dont get close to anything i let it run for about 25 min. and its nice n warm in there . if its a bad heater core they want like $800.i also seen this deisel parking heater on e bay its $150. its pretty easy to hook up does a great job also you might want to look at that .just dont use a really small cord for the electric heater it will get hot at the plug . if u need any help just holla stay warm !

McLovin

Andyyyy!!🥰

well five minutes at -20 doesn't sound that fun

I do have a fire extinguisher, but since I have it connected to the alternator post rather than the battery, the fusible link in the alternator connection will protect the circuit as well.

***** Aah at least there is a fuse somewhere, my car doesn't have that, alternator positive is connected directly through to battery positive. I've added a 4 gauge coming from my alternator to the boot/trunk for powering subwoofer and amplifier, plus two 8 gauges from battery +, also going to the boot, one for carputer and other auxiliary systems (aftermarket alarm, powered USB sockets in each seat), and the other for powering a small inverter for whatever may require 240v, and the same cable is used for keeping the battery topped-up by the 100w solar panel on the roof (there's a MPPT charge controller in the boot). They're all fused before going through the firewall, and then enter busbar fuse boxes in the boot for distributing to the individual systems. Fuseboxes and wiring everywhere! I did have everything coming from battery positive, but the wire from the alternator started melting - so I upgraded it to 4 gauge and moved the stereo power wire straight onto the alternator. I really like the idea of putting a proper 1.5kw heater in the car (my car lives outdoors and it's really cold at the moment), but I think my alternator would probably go up in flames - it's amazing it works to power all the stuff I have already. Tis rated at 70a, but I'm sure I'm drawing more than that at times, guess the battery makes up the difference. You may be thinking I'm talking about an RV or a large people-mover, but no, my car is a Ford Fiesta mk4 1.25 ;) My next little project is to build a little supercapacitor starting device that would be kept at 13v by a boost/buck converter, and give enough of a kick to start the engine even if I accidentally let battery voltage drop too low. I've got 6 x 350F supercaps in series - fully charged they're easily enough to start the engine on their own.

madmodifier Diesel engines are a little different, but the primary reason truckers and heavy vehicle owners pre-warm them is because the turbos on heavy equipment are not designed to properly lubricate on cold starts. They expect the operator to wait a few minutes. For passenger vehicles they attempt to make the turbos cold weather tolerant to avoid the waiting period, but waiting a minute or two before spinning up the turbo can still arguably extend its life somewhat.ATF doesn't need to be pre-warmed unless it's gelled, and since the industry shift to synthetic blend lubricants (such as Dexron 6) they pretty much never do. Shifts and such may be slower but it doesn't hurt anything because the clutch materials are so cold that they don't wear much even with the excess slipping. The excess slipping also helps to avoid shock fractures with the more brittle cold metal.Regardless you don't want to hammer on it until things are mostly warm. Cold metal is more brittle and things fit tighter when they're cold which can result in more friction until the metals expand. And that's a large part of why not to idle: You're warming your engine up with friction - not good. If you drive it you warm it up more with the hot combustion gasses than the internal friction.

***** Nice explanation, you've educated me a bit too because I always thought it was just down to oil viscosity.

***** Interesting ideas. I will have to research this more. Keeping in mind I am living in MN and drive auto's that take dex 3 or 4.

I agree with you on the time issue. On many vehicles a 'simple' alternator replacement has a book time of multiple hours and will set you back $1k. On others like this one it is trivial.

I bought it broken from a private party and repaired it. 1500W continuous I believe.

When in doubt, listen to the people who designed it!

knurlgnar24 I know this is an older video but I connected a 2000 Watt peak power inverter to a 1500 heater and I barley get any heat. new to power inverters so any advice will help.

Rev John O'Toole Interesting idea! But I don't like the idea of needing to pre-plan my trips so pre-warming isn't of much interest to me. I just want to hop in the car and go, but since I'm a wimp I don't want to be cold when doing so. This pretty well solves that problem and will defrost windows quickly too if that's the goal.

1st, NW Indiana is nowhere near as cold as where I live. 2nd, what if I don't want to waste 10 minutes of my day every day? That adds up. 3rd. You're right. Just waiting for the car to warm up is probably better for nearly everyone. I used this for one or two winters and then went back to just letting the car warm up. It did work great though!

@@knurlgnar24 Im curious why you didn't continue to use it? was it because it didn't warm up the cabin of the car very quickly?

oil viscosity is higher when cold, causes more wear on all the moving parts, particularly the bearings, but also the cylinder, valves, cams, everything moving. Better to bring the temperature up fairly quickly, but not place any heavy load on the engine till its warm.

For audio applications I would definitely connect directly to the battery. Audio consumes very dynamic power with a high crest factor, something that alternators cannot adequately provide without help from a battery. e.g. Battery capacitance is often modeled as a 1 or 2 farad capacitor directly across the leads.

Watts are watts no matter the voltage. Take volts x amps = watts or watts \ volts = Amps

phillip renicker lololololol

Mooky Mann You, sir, win a chocolate Frosty! Please proceed to the nearest Wendy's, tell them I sent you, and they'll give you Frosty of your choice at the menu price and not a penny more! (except tax. Tax is more.)

She said the best she could do was let me have it at the Senior's rate. O_o heh heh.

There are very few good ones on the market (that I'm aware of) and when you do find a good one they are expensive. ***** is cheap. :)

@@AnthonyDiSano There are none !

@@davidelo5843 Sure there are.

1991 Buick LeSabre. It's the kind of vehicle that just keeps going and going and going as one by one the various extraneous accessories (power antenna, radio, power windows, power seat, and powerful rust holes, etc) quit or get worse. At some point you just give up and throw in the towel because it just won't die... :)

***** No the first car (around 2:30), where you demonstrate the crappy 12V heater. And yes, that first gen 3800 was pretty bulletproof.

kevin9c1 oh, sorry. That one is a 2003 Buick Century. Terrible resale value which makes them a good value used and it was a nice vehicle when I bought it 10 years ago. Those 3100 engines aren't as bulletproof, powerful, or as smooth as the 3800's but so long as you keep track of lower intake gasket leaks they're a simple and solid engine that will last a very long time, and they're mated up to the best 4 speed automatic GM every produced the same one as the 3800. It's dated now but is otherwise a reliable vehicle and still economical on fuel (low 30's) and very comfortable. If I had to replace it at this point I'd probably go for an older Regal though.

***** Yes the Century had an odd pairing of the 3100 but 4T60E trans (same design as the 440-T4 in your LeSabre as you mentioned). My wife drives a 2000 Malibu w/ 3100 but 4T40E and while it has been a reliable car, both she and I are tired of looking at it. As to the best 4-speed, I dunno. My 93 Caprice 9C1 has 288k and the 4L60 (700R4), so that's something. I should also take this opportunity to agree with you that idling cars to warm up is not helping anything, and actually hurting. I always say, if you want to warm up your car in the driveway, let's be clear about something: it's for warming up YOU - it does the car no favors. If you are lucky enough to have a car with full instrumentation, wait until the oil pressure has risen then go drive it. In extremely cold weather, a small warm up period is probably advisable but I'm talking below -20°F at that point, and not all cars are cut out for those conditions, as the plethora of cold start RU-vid videos indicate. The longer the engine runs in a cold situation, the worse it is in the long run. And nothing warms a car up faster than driving it. Finally (whew), I caught a whiff of Regular Car Reviews at 5:20 when you announced that the LeSabre is your winter car. I believe in multiple cars as it enables me to drive more interesting older cars but have the freedom to take one down for a weekend (or longer) if need be. No car payments here, but I have 5 cars to choose from.

***** And what happened to the Seville??

Timothy Moulton I hooked it up to the alternator for three reasons: One, my batter bolts are not long enough and my alternator bolts were. Two, the voltage drop from the alternator to the battery is fairly significant and the gauge of the alternator wires is thin, so this stresses the alternator less and also prevents overheating of the wires. Three, this was easier and I was lazy. :)

Ah ok so you are getting 14+ v only to the battery bc of the thin wires ? lol

If you have a homemade EV then figuring this out should be no challenge for you.

Yeah. Stupid idea. Do you know how much current this type of setup requires. You could literally sit there and watch the miles of range go down.

Most of them are low power by comparison - even the direct hookup ones don't do much - and if you find one that outputs any real amount of heat it will be quite pricy. 1000W inverters are cheap and heaters are cheap. Not only that but they're both items are useful for other purposes later. This setup would only cost around $70 excluding cabling and it works very well. The direct reason I did it though is because I already had this stuff laying around.

Sounds reasonable. Thanks for the vids, I have really enjoyed learning about batteries and inverters!

***** Tracy Reed Just had a look myself and he's right, the only cheap DC heaters that are available all suffer the 150w limitation because of the lighter socket. However, it's worth pointing out that it's the voltage that's needed not the AC. You could run an AC heater on DC if you were to have a high enough voltage. You could also potentially rewire a 120v heater to run on 12v, depending on its physical construction. If it's made from a set of heating elements wired in series, you could potentially change it to a parallel wiring configuration to bring the voltage requirement down. Another option would be to buy nichrome wire and make your own 12v heating element - either to replace the one in an existing heater, or to go in your own custom enclosure. All of these are potential fire hazards if you're not careful though so I wouldn't recommend it, the safer option would be to use an unmodified heater + inverter.

Tracy Reed yea

How did it go?

tchrisou812 i didnt go with this.. I bought a Mr heater Little buddy.. Its a propane heater and it works like a champ!!

Alex Dicaprio uh how safe is that?? I want to do something like this but I don't think I want to run propane gas in the car

randy bruno its a portable heater that uses propane bottles.. look it up on youtube its called Mr Heater Little Buddy. there is a bigger version called Mr heater Big buddy but you will get roasted inside your car with that one.

ever heard of carbon monoxide?we just had a guy and his dog die from using propane in a vehicle dont be stupid get an inverter and a cheap hair dryer

700 my inverter

Mrinfoone yea

FFcossag I'm always disappointed that auto makers don't put 12V heater cores as an option - I guess they're more worried about selling vehicles to California and Texas than us poor saps in the midwest. I know that Mercedes does offer this as a standard feature on some of their vehicles - and there's no good excuse for why cadillac, lincoln and the like don't do the same.

***** waste heat is cheap, why burn fuel to make heat, when the water based heater core is using what would just be expelled anyway...

voltare2amstereo Because waste heat (save for somehow scavenging exhaust heat) is not available when you need it the most; when the car is stone cold.

the waste heat is why they dont to it though. the extra load it creates would ruin the fuel ecconomy rating.. they could thermostatically control it though

***** I agree fully. A 12V heater core would be extremely inexpensive and would only operate for the first few minutes after startup in cold ambient temperatures which wouldn't even register in the EPA or NHTSA tests since they are configured for California/Texas buyers. It should be an option but, no, they seem to think people would rather have inconvenient touchscreens everywhere than not freeze their asses off.

This guy has no automotive knowledge whatsoever...

I clean the snow and ice off my vehicles before starting them in most cases. It's a massive waste of fuel, time, and wear on the vehicle to idle it for 10 minutes once or twice a day. I'm halfway home by the time the people who idled their cars to warm them even start moving. I've never understood why people think they need to pre-warm their vehicles before cleaning off the snow/ice. Unless there's freezing rain and your car is now one giant lollipop it only takes a couple of minutes to clean it - and it takes people that long just to walk from their cars to back inside the building.

@@knurlgnar24 not only that, leaving your car outside in the street idling unattended voids your insurance as you left the car with the engine running unattended when someone too lazy to walk steals your car.

The glow plugs I'm familiar with are for diesel engines. They are only intended to warm the small area needed to allow compresson ignition so that the 'fire piston' effect ignite the diesel in a cold engine. They don't actually help warm the engine, unfortunately - they just help to get it started.

Blake Rooyakkers but then it wouldn't have been as informative or as interesting.