Can anyone recommend a good 12V Interior Car Heater?

[jmc]

I am wonder if someone can recommend a good 12V interior car heater (plugs into the 12V adapter inside your car). The two I found on Canadian Tire's website [12V Interior Car Heater, and 12V Auto Heater/Defogger] got bad reviews. Thanks.

[BlackArcher101]

Had a canuck tire one, and it promptly started on fire. Ripped that thing out right away.

[project240]

I used one and after about 20 seconds of having it plugged in, the plug started to smoke/melt and it blew the lighter fuse/socket.

[Zero102]

Think about it, typical indoor electric heaters are in the neighborhood of 500-1000W. At 12-14V that is a current of 40-80A, or about 1/3 of what your starter motor uses.
Lighters are typically fused at 15 or 20A, and they usually run 14AWG wire to the lighter socket in most cars, this is good for about 15A.

So, you have 2 choices:
1) A 150W heater, which will put out very little for heat and takes a long time to heat up
2) A much more powerful heater, which will give you blown fuses and possibly a fire (which I might add, will heat up rather quickly).


For a decent 12V heating solution you should be looking at adding an entirely separate circuit which is capable of handling 40-80A. You'll never be happy with a smaller heater.


Lots of newer cars have electric heaters shoehorned into their heater boxes, such as the mk5 VW diesels. This provides supplementary heat while the engine warms up. These heaters also use on the order of 50-100A of power while running.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally posted by Zero102
For a decent 12V heating solution you should be looking at adding an entirely separate circuit which is capable of handling 40-80A. You'll never be happy with a smaller heater.


The small heater I got had it's own 120AC plug. On the cold days, it was meant to plug in to the same plug as the block heater.

After it started on fire though, I never again trusted putting an unsupervised heating element inside my car.

[Zero102]

Ah yes, 120V heaters are much better due to the low current requirements, however they require very careful placement as they are often used unsupervised. I would always recommend strongly against them except in very unique circumstances.

[typhoonslippery]

try here