Ok, it's quite clear that many of us are having problems with the heater and the D3 site also speaks about it, so this is what I have found with mine, do people agree?

1. Heater needs to be turned up to 28 to get any decent warmth out of it.

2. Auto function is crap, you either end up with roasted feet and very cold top half of your body or it won't get hot enough at all.

3. Blending of the air seems inconsistent, my upper body always feels cold unless I push air manually through the face vents

4. When it's set to auto and you begin a journey on a cold day, the fans are on quite a high setting for the first few minutes, pushing cold air at you, then it dies off, as if it has realised that it's not up to temp yet, then a minute or so later it starts sending warm air in.

Rubbish! L319 D4 HSE

1998 110 TUM HS FFR Hard Top XD WOLF

1982 Series 3 SWB

RRUK wrote:

Ok, it's quite clear that many of us are having problems with the heater and the D3 site also speaks about it, so this is what I have found with mine, do people agree?

1. Heater needs to be turned up to 28 to get any decent warmth out of it.

2. Auto function is crap, you either end up with roasted feet and very cold top half of your body or it won't get hot enough at all.

3. Blending of the air seems inconsistent, my upper body always feels cold unless I push air manually through the face vents

4. When it's set to auto and you begin a journey on a cold day, the fans are on quite a high setting for the first few minutes, pushing cold air at you, then it dies off, as if it has realised that it's not up to temp yet, then a minute or so later it starts sending warm air in.

Rubbish!

RRUK - I would agree with 3 of the points. Point 3 is the one I have issue with - I have no problem with the heating in this area. 2005 Zambezi TDV6 - Gone but not forgotten
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I think I am one of the few whose heating works excellently. It was -1 yesterday it took 3 minutes to clear the ice off the car using the heating which was a darned site quicker than the Grand Cherokee I had before. Air- con works fine demisters fine oh well must be lucky  RRS TDV6 HSE BUCKINGHAM BLUE BLACK LEATHER INTERIOR RHODIUM TASMOD SILLS PARROT 3000 EVOLUTION WHITE SIDE REPEATERS RRPORT.CO.UK BROLLY & STICKER
HOW GOOD IS THIS CAR!!!!
8 YEARS AND STILL GETTING LOOKS

Would agree with point 2 & 3 maybe AUTO/BLENDING is not good.

But would disagree with regard to heat up time & having to turn it up to 28.

This is a common mistake made with air con.

Air con will not heat until the engine has reached temperature ( you will find petrols are quicker to heat than diesels ) You will not get a hotter car any sooner by turning the temp up to 28 than if you left it at 18 . The system is relliant on the engine reaching temp initially - the system will continue to heat the car at the same rate initially no matter what you set the temp to.

Imagine your house/heating system . You wake up and central heating is switched off .... so you fire up the boiler..... even if you then go to the thermostat and whack it up to max..... your house will not get any warmer quicker than if the thermostat had been left at 19, 20 or 21 etc .

And furthermore .............. this brings me to the FAN/Blower, again, this will not heat it any quicker by turning the fan up high ( apart for demist situations ) leave it at a lower setting as this will help not to cool the actual system.

I spent much time arguing this & had it demonstrated to me a long time back with a VW technician armed with a thermometre.

So it all comes down to how quick ( or in our case ) how slow the RRS engines take to warm from cold.

Hope this explanation reads clear enough

Cheers

Martin 
" WITH MORE EXTRAS THAN A HOLLYWOOD EPIC "

Well, I may have some news here. I'm picking mine up this evening after being in the dealers for two days to have some warranty work (see http://www.rrsport.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1345) and this is one item that I complained about. This morning I noticed a massive difference in the Freelander I am borrowing from them. On the normal school run this morning, I had warm air after two miles of driving - it was lovely as it was -3 degC. However, in the RRS we don't get warm air until I have done at least seven miles and it takes the whole return trip of 16 miles before we get proper heating.

I had asked the garage to look into the heater functionality and said that I had read that a software upgrade on the D3 had improved things. They called me today to say that have indeed done a software upgrade as there was a fix to change when the flaps inside the air conditioning opened which improves the heating. They also said the software upgrade is only done when customers complain about such things. So in a few days time I will be able to report if this fix has improved the heating in the RRS. Matt
-------------------------------------------
RRS ownership for 1 yr, then D3 for 2 yrs. Then cut back to old bangers and working my way back up through two Peugeots in 6 months. Now got Saab 9-5 2.3t and enjoying the performance!

RRUK wrote:

Ok, it's quite clear that many of us are having problems with the heater and the D3 site also speaks about it, so this is what I have found with mine, do people agree?

1. Heater needs to be turned up to 28 to get any decent warmth out of it.

2. Auto function is crap, you either end up with roasted feet and very cold top half of your body or it won't get hot enough at all.

3. Blending of the air seems inconsistent, my upper body always feels cold unless I push air manually through the face vents

4. When it's set to auto and you begin a journey on a cold day, the fans are on quite a high setting for the first few minutes, pushing cold air at you, then it dies off, as if it has realised that it's not up to temp yet, then a minute or so later it starts sending warm air in.

Rubbish!

Absolutely agree with 2, 3 & 4. For point 1, I don't have to go as far as 28 but I can start to get heat at 24. There's no variation below that, it's always just cold. 

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MDP wrote:

So it all comes down to how quick ( or in our case ) how slow the RRS engines take to warm from cold.

Hope this explanation reads clear enough

This is all quite right, Martin - but the problem I face (and I'm assuming it's the same as RRUKs problem) is that unless you turn the heat controls right up once the car has warmed you still don't get any warm air from the vents. My car takes a couple of miles for the engine temp needle to reach operating temperature, so I tend not to hit the heat controls until then and simply rely on the heated seats to keep the bum/legs and back warm.

That said, Kam had these sort of problems too and perservered successfully with the auto functions. In his case it just needed time to settle itself into "thermal equilibrium". I tried that in mine and was still freezing my jacobs off half an hour later  

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mpwox11 wrote:

Well, I may have some news here. I'm picking mine up this evening after being in the dealers for two days to have some warranty work (see http://www.rrsport.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1345) and this is one item that I complained about. This morning I noticed a massive difference in the Freelander I am borrowing from them. On the normal school run this morning, I had warm air after two miles of driving - it was lovely as it was -3 degC. However, in the RRS we don't get warm air until I have done at least seven miles and it takes the whole return trip of 16 miles before we get proper heating.

I had asked the garage to look into the heater functionality and said that I had read that a software upgrade on the D3 had improved things. They called me today to say that have indeed done a software upgrade as there was a fix to change when the flaps inside the air conditioning opened which improves the heating. They also said the software upgrade is only done when customers complain about such things. So in a few days time I will be able to report if this fix has improved the heating in the RRS.

Look forward to that Matt - this may be the solution. I'll add that to the snagging list for when mine goes in for its service.

Sorry for the multiple replies...  

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Quote:

I tried that in mine and was still freezing my jacobs off half an hour later

I wondered who these belonged to!



:D

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2009 Alaska TDV8 - Gone and much missed.



WINNER - 2009 �Idler Of The Year� Award
Runner Up - 2009 �Just Doing What It�s Designed To Do� Award


DO NOT CLICK HERE!

 

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I agree with you MDP on your techno stuff, not disputing that. But it does seem to take ages for any decent warmth to get into the cabin. I have tried SO many different settings, like leaving it on Auto all the time etc and the performance is pretty poor when I compare it to other cars I have had.

I shall push for this software upgrade and hope it works. Looking forward to hearing what mpwox11's car is like when it comes back. L319 D4 HSE

1998 110 TUM HS FFR Hard Top XD WOLF

1982 Series 3 SWB

Well got the car back and wow, the software upgrade has definately improved the heater. When on 'auto mode', warm air come out much much earlier even though the engine was still cold. Also the temperature control is fixed. Before we had to keep the dial at 26-max most of the time. Now this evening I found this far too hot after only 15 minutes driving and had to keep turning it down to 20. This is the first time that I've ever had the heating as low as that on a cold day. So at last the heating works properly.
If you have got heating problems, get the software upgrade.
However, when I got in the car at the dealers, a "low coolant level" warning came up. Never seen this before. Then 20 mins later a "Engine system fault" warning came up. Now wondering if the software upgrade has introduced other bugs! Matt
-------------------------------------------
RRS ownership for 1 yr, then D3 for 2 yrs. Then cut back to old bangers and working my way back up through two Peugeots in 6 months. Now got Saab 9-5 2.3t and enjoying the performance!