air4ce said:
If you have ever lived in area of severe winters (like me) you may know that when it gets really cold an old trick is to run out and start the car, turn up the heater, and let it run for 10 minutes while you wait inside. Then you have a warm car to ride home in.
Can you do this in a Prius?
Fargo is not quite as cold as Alberta, but we get 30 to 40 below zero. (At 40 below you don't have to convert between fahrenheit and celcius. -40 F. = -40 C.)
And it is easy to do. Here's what I do in bitterly cold weather:
1. Remove the mechanical key from the key fob. (I keep it separate, on my keychain all winter, and the fob in the pocket of my parka.)
2. Get in and start the car in the normal manner.
3. Set the heat on Max Hot, the fan on High, and the air source on Recirculate.
4. Leave the fob in the car, get out, and lock the door with the mechanical key. Then run back inside as fast as you can because by this time your toes are feeling the cold.
5. It takes about 5 minutes before there's a good flow of warm air coming out of the vents. Give it a couple of minutes more if you want the car to really warm up a bit.
6. Return to the car and open the door with the mechanical key. Don't forget to put the fob back in your pocket. Drive away warm.
7. Once the car is warm, you may have to switch from recirculated air to outside air to avoid fogging up the windows and windshield. Or use the A/C. But I don't like to use the A/C because I presume that I won't get as much heat that way. So I leave it off and use recirculated air for faster heating initially, and then switch to outside air when I begin to notice fogging.
The Prius gives me more heat, and gives it sooner, than my '89 Honda Civic did.
I don't know if you can leave the car running without leaving the fob in the car. I'm not at all sure why I never tried it that way. For that matter, I don't know if you can take the fob with you and lock the doors with the Smart Lock while the car is running. The answers might be somewhere on
http://john1701a.com. That site has mountains of information. Links with a "C" refer to the Classic Prius. Links with an "N" refer to the New (2004) Prius.
I do know that as long as you are calling for cabin heat in extremely cold weather the ICE will never shut off.