Block Heater

[Duezzer]

Hello All,

So I live in the Great White North. There are times that I like to take my Boxster out on cold days, maybe stop over at friends for a few hours or go into the city for the day. Leaving the car out in the cold for many hours. When it is bitterly cold out I don't want to crank over a cold car as it is hard on them - Especially with 0-40 oil in them.

Has anyone ever put something like a block heater or a inline circulating coolant system heater one their cars.

If you have can you let me know what type and how you did the install.

Thanks

Duezzer

[recycledsixtie]

I drove my 2001 Boxster for 3 winters and put snow tires on it. I never had a block heater and it had no trouble starting at -35C(approx -30F). Several years ago I asked the same question and nobody seemed to know anything about blockheaters on Boxsters.

However my feeling is that this is not a motor that should be operated in really cold conditions. Perhaps it is me or paranoia or whatever but I find the engine is not happy running at really cold temps. Year round in California or spring/summer in the Rockies fine. It is pretty safe to say that operating costs/wear and tear on engine escalate rapidly driving this car in our winters.

Cheers, Guy.

[wawa]

I drove my 2000S several winter in Québec without any trouble. Never had a difficulty to start. Great handling, good traction control, warm fast Inside. Porsche test these engine in really cold weather. They have winter driving school. They advertise winter equipment. They want us to use our car in snow and cold condition. Personnaly I dont think there is a difference using a porsche or a audi, bmw, Toyota or any other car in winter.

Most people just dont want to put there precious 80 000$ (new) value car in rough condition. For me, I have paid 80 000$ for my new 981 boxster, I will use it as much as I can for as long as I can. I dont mind the 5000$ difference in resale value in 8 years compare to the years of driving experience in every condition.

My opinion
For the block heater, never hear of one for boxster, never used one and had no problem.

Later

Chris

[Mark_T]

The point is not whether it will start or not. The OP is quite right in stating that it is not good for any engine to be stated up cold at temps in the -20 to -40 range. If you are going to drive in these temps and can't always park in a garage, then you should have some kind of block heater, unless you are ok with installing an "access port" on the side of the engine like we saw in another post no so long ago.

You can get stick-on heater panels that go on the bottom of the oil pan, but with our low ground clearance this might not be a good choice. The best solution would be to have a proper block heater installed in a frost plug hole, but I could see that being pretty costly, and where do you route the cord? Probably a circulation heater in a rad hose would be the most efficient and cost effective solution. You might also want to take a look at the dipstick heaters that are available to see if there is one made to fit a Boxster.

You can always go old school and just hang a 100W light bulb in the engine compartment. I used that as a block heater in an old '61 Strato Chief I had in my younger days and it worked a treat.

[Duezzer]

I had looked on the block somewhat while I was doing the IMS and Cluch job but did not see a frost plug - going to have to take a second look - If the plug is normal size that would be the way I would go.

Looked at the stick on ones but they are only 125 or 250 watt - a bit better than a 100W bulb and are quite thin - 2 to 4mm. I don't think it would be an issue.

Except for having to to find the room to install the hardware for the 100W bulb and having it in a place that it wont break all the time I like the idea - around christmas I could change out to Green and Red bulbs for a holiday effect. Maybe one of those fancy LEDs in the summer that change to a different colors. Really entertain the tuners out there then!!!!

Nice holiday glow under the car would be sweet.

[Duezzer]

Believe I will go with a 250W glue on to the Oil Pan system. Seems to be the simplest solution and should work just fine. https://www.wolverineheater.com/product-p/16.htm is the type I will be ordering.