# Takes forever to heat up....



## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

I was going to recommend AMSOIL coolant boost for this, but running your engine for half an hour and needle still being on cold? Sounds like the thermostat is stuck open. 

That is, unless the heat was on max with recirculate off. Then, the heater could literally cool the engine down. Not sure if it would keep it that cold though.


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

what fan speed are you using?


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## 14BlueCruze (Feb 9, 2014)

Typically, anymore I leave the thermostat on cold and fan off so car will warm up which does help, barely. I know this is not normal but the dealership is saying that it is. Do I have to take a half hour video showing how long it takes to warm up and then send it to GM or what?


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

What is your coolant level in the tank?


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## 14BlueCruze (Feb 9, 2014)

Merc6 said:


> What is your coolant level in the tank?


At the line where it is supposed to be.


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

Just how cold is it where you are?


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## 14BlueCruze (Feb 9, 2014)

It can get bitter cold in Indiana. Single digits to 40's are normal temps for winter here although we do see temps beyond 10 below in which case, I would understand it not warming up for a while, but in the normal winter temperatures it shouldn't be a problem.


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

14BlueCruze said:


> It can get bitter cold in Indiana. Single digits to 40's are normal temps for winter here although we do see temps beyond 10 below in which case, I would understand it not warming up for a while, but in the normal winter temperatures it shouldn't be a problem.


I'm in NW Indiana so I know how cold it has been, but after half an hour, the car should be warmed up unless you had the heater on the max fan and heat setting. If you did, then it would be normal.


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## 14BlueCruze (Feb 9, 2014)

I'm going to take it to a different dealership and leave it with them overnight.


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## spacedout (Dec 7, 2010)

XtremeRevolution said:


> I'm in NW Indiana so I know how cold it has been, but after half an hour, the car should be warmed up unless you had the heater on the max fan and heat setting. If you did, then it would be normal.


Takes my car 30 minutes of city driving/idling to hit full operating temps, details below. 

At 5F the other day I remote started my car for 5 minutes before I left, starting coolant temperature was 6F(Heater cold/hot dial was left at max but fan on 1). When I got in the car the coolant was at 95F, turned fan to 2. Drove across town for lunch, got out and remote started my car(let fan on 1), came back 6 minutes later had gained only 10F more coolant temp. Ended up driving/idling around town a total of 25 minutes to hit full operating temps, with 5 minute remote start for a total of 30 minutes to fully warm up. 

In the city as long as I was on the gas driving or idling on fan 2 I was gaining engine temp, it was every downhill section or road even at 25mph I would loose 10-15F.


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

For me I never go past 3rd gear in the city.


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## neile300c (Jul 8, 2014)

Funny this was brought up. Last week we had 2 mornings of 10-20 degree weather when I left for work. First day I let it warm up for about 10 minutes, decided to leave because the needle wasn't moving. It didn't start getting warm until I got on the interstate for a couple minutes. The next morning I didn't take the interstate, and it took 10 minutes of city driving to get it going (plus a couple minutes sitting there). I thought that it was strange, my 300c never took that long, but I figure it's just the way it is. It's a 14 with the 1.4 with stick.


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## Green (May 14, 2014)

Warmup is indeed different then any other vehicle I've owned (but I have only been driving for 48 years or so). It is engraved in my head that the temp guage has to start going up (t-stat open) before any measuable heat can be obtained, always been that way  .

Reality is heater is quite quick in supplying warm even on a cold day as long as it is turned up on high and fan (as others suggest) on slower speed. On a few cool days this winter it has taken 15 mins and 10~~>12 miles for temp gauge to get to normal place, but I've been well warmed long before that in cabin, thats what really matters.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Just to give you a comparison - I left my ECO MT running one morning last week for nearly 30 minutes while I chipped the ice off the windshield. Heater was on defrost and blower on 1. The digital temperature gauge still read below 100F when I got in to drive off. It was 12F outside. These engines just don't produce a lot of heat at idle.


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

> Takes my car 30 minutes of city driving/idling to hit full operating temps, details below.


Same here, on really cold days. 

Heat comes on once the gauge hits 1/4, which happens fairly quickly. From there on, it may take it another 9 miles with city driving/idling to actually hit 200F, at which point I'm usually turning the heater down because it's nice and toasty in the car.


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## mrod2014 (Jan 12, 2015)

I am having the same issue with my temp gauge but I am at 61,000 miles. It was working fine before that however once the weather got done to 55 degrees in TX, i noticed the car took a while to warm. I have read other posts where the cruze has issues with defective thermostats at about 60,000 miles. Mainly, if the car doesn't heat like it should, there are roughly two generally answers and that is the thermostat is not behaving correctly, and/or there is an issue with the heater core. With 9,000 miles i would just ask the dealership to change the thermostat out since its relatively easy to do and see if that doesn't help.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

mrod,

The thermostat is under the power train warranty. Also, double check your coolant level.


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## Blue Angel (Feb 18, 2011)

Just throwing this out there, the Cruze (and most modern cars) do not stop coolant flow to the heater core when the heat selector dial is set to cold. There is always hot coolant flowing through the heater core, even in the summer with the AC running.

There is a blend door in the HVAC module that controls how much air from the fan goes through the heater core. When set to full cold the blend door keeps all air from flowing through the heater core, and when set to full hot all air goes through it.

If a thermostat is stuck open it will keep the car from warming up, but it must be understood that these tiny engines do not produce a lot of waste heat, and using the heater definitely increases the time it takes to get the engine up to temp.


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## BlkGrnetRS (Jul 21, 2013)

My car used to take forever too. I bought some amsoil coolant boost and it made a huge difference. Plus I leave my heat on recirulate and fan speed on 1. I have plenty of heat after running the car for 10 mins


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## spacedout (Dec 7, 2010)

BlkGrnetRS said:


> My car used to take forever too. I bought some amsoil coolant boost and it made a huge difference. Plus I leave my heat on recirulate and fan speed on 1. I have plenty of heat after running the car for 10 mins


I interested yet skeptical that anything I could add to the coolant would help it warm up, without some sort of trade off in cooling capacity. 

I can have heat in 10 minutes also, just need to head straight out onto the highway at 55mph+.


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## Vetterin (Mar 27, 2011)

I agree! I can feel "warm" air after about 5 minutes of city driving but get me on the highway and my fan gets turned down to 1 after about 10 minutes.


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## 14BlueCruze (Feb 9, 2014)

Big thanks folks. I'm going to play around with the heat/fan/recirc over the next couple days. Should be a good week to test it, we have wind chills of negative 4F heading for a high of 19 and low of 3.


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## BlkGrnetRS (Jul 21, 2013)

spacedout said:


> I interested yet skeptical that anything I could add to the coolant would help it warm up, without some sort of trade off in cooling capacity.
> 
> I can have heat in 10 minutes also, just need to head straight out onto the highway at 55mph+.


I'm not the only one who has seen an improvement in warm up time. There are many people here that would agree with me on this, the research is there.. sorry you feel skeptical. We all don't have the luxury of heading straight onto the highway


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

spacedout said:


> I interested yet skeptical that anything I could add to the coolant would help it warm up, without some sort of trade off in cooling capacity.
> 
> I can have heat in 10 minutes also, just need to head straight out onto the highway at 55mph+.


Not one person reported not seeing a difference so far. I'd have to look through and see how many people bought the product but it's in multiple dozens. 

The science behind surfectants used in antifreeze is not a new one. The idea is that by improving the surface tension of the antifreeze, you can improve thermal transfer. 

I demonstrated in my vendor section through a screenshot that even with the coolant boost, on a Crown Vic, there was an over 30F gap between the cylinder head temp and the antifreeze temp. This is because thermal transfer is not instantaneous. What this does is close the gap between antifreeze temp and the engine block and cylinder head temp. 

In reality, you are actually causing the *engine* to take longer to heat up, but the *antifreeze* is heating up more quickly. To you, it will appear as though the engine is warming up more quickly because the temp gauge measures antifreeze temp, not cylinder head temp. 

The same improved thermal transfer then dissipates more heat through the heater core to bring you heat faster in the cabin. 

In my car, the air is lukewarm by 110F. By 120F, it is positively warm and I can increase fan speed. Note: 120F is the "cold" mark on the temp gauge, and on a 20F day, I get heat in the cabin at that temperature. By 140F, I get comfortable heat.


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

I kinda saw temps with dominator but from driving it w/o idle. I purposely left the car outside of the heated garage tonight to see how long it takes to warm up in 4 hrs when I leave work.

XR which CV? CVPI have some kind of rear cylinder heat pipe that isn't on the Civilian CV's. Can't find the thread as it was like 10 years ago when I was gonna do it on my 4V 4.6.

This..

http://www.reinhartperformance.com/...ode=12345&Product_Code=MM_RCK&Category_Code=9


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## Chevy Customer Care (Oct 29, 2011)

mrod2014 said:


> I am having the same issue with my temp gauge but I am at 61,000 miles. It was working fine before that however once the weather got done to 55 degrees in TX, i noticed the car took a while to warm. I have read other posts where the cruze has issues with defective thermostats at about 60,000 miles. Mainly, if the car doesn't heat like it should, there are roughly two generally answers and that is the thermostat is not behaving correctly, and/or there is an issue with the heater core. With 9,000 miles i would just ask the dealership to change the thermostat out since its relatively easy to do and see if that doesn't help.


We're so sorry that you've been experiencing concerns with your temperature gauge. We'd be happy to look into this matter for you and scan your VIN within our system to see if there are any open service announcements that deal with your concern. Feel free to send us a private message with your VIN and more information if our help is needed. We look forward to hearing from you!

Kristen A.
Chevrolet Customer Care


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

Merc6 said:


> I kinda saw temps with dominator but from driving it w/o idle. I purposely left the car outside of the heated garage tonight to see how long it takes to warm up in 4 hrs when I leave work.
> 
> XR which CV? CVPI have some kind of rear cylinder heat pipe that isn't on the Civilian CV's. Can't find the thread as it was like 10 years ago when I was gonna do it on my 4V 4.6.
> 
> ...


It was my upline dealer's CV, and he bought it at auction and wrapped it with AMSOIL marketing. I believe it was a CVPI. Here's the scan he sent me:










You can see cylinder head temp at 198F and engine coolant temp at 165F, a difference of 33F _*after *_using coolant boost. He said his warm-up times drastically reduced after adding it, and given that temperature gap between the coolant and the cylinder head, I can see why.


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## BU54 (Nov 24, 2014)

Vetterin said:


> I agree! I can feel "warm" air after about 5 minutes of city driving but get me on the highway and my fan gets turned down to 1 after about 10 minutes.


That's pretty much the story with my '13 1.4LT cruze. It warms suprisingly fast for such a small engine. With that said it cools rapidly when off of course.
Even my 4.3L 2003 S-10 takes a while to warm up at idle. When it's below zero I usually give it 5 minutes then hit the road. It warms up quickly then of course.


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## Dvan5693 (Jul 8, 2014)

To OP sounds like you may have an issue going on. 

Me for example. This morning it was -2, not much of a windchill. I let my car run about 10-15 minutes. With NO heat on. Fan on zero. Went to leave, temp gauge not moved after idling. After driving a mile through my sub, staying around 2k on the tach, gauge budged! Drive another 2 miles or so while keeping between 2-2.5k on the tac and wait at a light. After the 2 miles(at most) to get to the light, my temp gauge was close to the quarter mark. Turn the heat on to 2 or 3(out of 6) and temp gauge starts moving down quickly. Turn heat down to fan speed 1 and give it some gas at the light while in neutral, keeping it around 1.5k to generate more heat. Doing this kept it pretty close to quarter mark on the temp gauge. 

After that city driving occurred of 40-50 mph, again keeping it around 2k to generate more heat. A few more miles down the road and I'm almost to normal operating temp on the gauge. Stop at a light, turn fan setting to 4 after maybe 30 seconds of this I notice the temp gauge barely moving, so I turn down to speed 2, gauge stops moving....I can deal with 2 for now as I'm not freezing anymore. After just a few more minutes of driving/idling it hits the middle mark on temp gauge(normal operating temp) and stays there. 

ONCE the engine temp finally reaches normal operating temp with this car for a few minutes, it seems the iron block holds the heat very well and will roast you right out of the car. However being an iron block vs aluminum it takes much longer to heat up but does HOLD the heat longer once heated. VS an aluminum block that will heat faster but dissipate faster.

This is the price we pay for a 1.4T that's as fuel efficient as it is....want quicker heat? Buy a car with an aluminum block or a diesel with an actual electric heater or don't complain about gas prices and drive something that doesn't get 40+mpg. There's always trade-offs. People will always complain about something and want the WORLDS BEST AMAZING CAR for 20k....doesn't work like that. Yes it stinks, but it's just part of the game, don't like it then sell the car because it's NOT going to change lol.


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