My wife has the same issue with our B250. She has no choice but the park it outside during the day in the office. When she drives home, the cabin only gets warm when she's almost home (about 15-20 minutes away). We live in Montreal, not quite as cold as Winterpeg but still very cold sometimes (and we get a lot more snow!).

 

I notice my 2015 B250 takes longer to warm up than previous vehicles i've owned. I have the base MB temp control system. I find when I switch the air vents from say dash vents to floor or mix the air output does not always redirect properly when the little red button is engaged. Thank god for heated seats.

 

I have owned a fair number of cars over the years and this happens to be the slowest to heat the cabin. In the old days we put a muff on the radiator.

 

The dealership installed a block heater under warranty so at least now we can now have a warm engine block on startup. This should speed up car heating on cold days. They say us the Auto feature only when you are warming up the car. This will keep the engine temp. up while slowly warming the car interior.
They also did a modification to the exhaust to prevent ice buildup there.

 

It looks this is "normal" in all our W246s, right?

I noticed this too on my 2014 B250. I agreed, "thank god to the heated seats". So in the morning drive to work and in the evening drive to home, the temp gauge starts to move at least after 3 to 5 mins drive, and to about 50/60 degree after 6 to 7 minutes something until you turn on the heater. Once you turn on the heater, you can see the temp gauge drop back to the start point quickly and re-increase very slowly... If you already in the highway, the gauge will increase a bit faster. Anyway, I think 10 minutes driving time before you start to have the heat supply is usually what happens.

I remember it's say the Corolla has electric heater installed one or two years ago. That means you can have heat supply right at the moment you start your cold car. I think that's a very great idea at all. Don't know why we don't have this convenient device in a much better car which even equip with 3 different batteries to support much more other electrical devices in the car.

 

Adjustment issues

I have the manual heater control (for temperature and for fan speed), and the problem I have noticed is in the winter, you can never get the air to output the Correct temperature setting.

If it is a cold day (winter, duh) and you turn on the heater, I can never get the temperature Right.

It is either One notch cold, or down a notch, one notch too hot. Shut The Front Door ! ! ! :frown

I hate taking my car to the dealer, for obvious reasons... but like I have a choice.

 

I have the manual heater control (for temperature and for fan speed), and the problem I have noticed is in the winter, you can never get the air to output the Correct temperature setting.

If it is a cold day (winter, duh) and you turn on the heater, I can never get the temperature Right.

It is either One notch cold, or down a notch, one notch too hot. Shut The Front Door ! ! ! :frown

I hate taking my car to the dealer, for obvious reasons... but like I have a choice.

I have the same issue too. On a long drive, I always toggle between 21 and 22. 21 is too cold, 22 is too hot! I thought it was just me. :grin

 

But I actually think the auto temp control makes a bigger problem~

(after the car fully heated up to supply heat to the passengers), (of course it's in winter), if I want a 22C degree, I think I have better to input a maybe 26 or higher, and turn down the setting while you think it's enough in a later time... so that the car will send heat out immediately.

Otherwise, if I only keep the temp setting on 22 degree, the computer will compare the current temp in the car and the temperature you want, and decide to send a "proper" heat amount out... but usually I think it's too slow and not directly enough...

In summer, easy, open the window and the roof at the same time turn on the AC~

 

What I found is that the engine seems to take a long time to warm up when in Economy drive mode. So on really cold days, I switch to manual mode and keep the gears lower to increase engine rpm. I found that if I kept rpm above 2500 range, the engine warmed up much faster. It uses more gas, but...........

 

That sounds a good solution for our UK winters which are so changeable. Your Canadian winter months are such that I would try blanking of 50% or more of the radiator. A sprung blind or muff would be even better, if such things exist these days. I remember visiting Edmonton many years ago and it sure was cold. Burrrrrr.

 

I would tend to agree...

If you are unfortunate enough, that your vehicle experiences the deep freeze 24/7 in the winter (you have no access to an indoor garage) I would...

1) You can invest in a block heater, many types to go by. They even have some now, that are like heating pads, that stick to your oil pan.

2) I would during the severe cold months, install a piece of card board in front of the radiator. Helps to stop the cold from cooling the radiator rapidly as well as diverting less air into the engine bay.

3) Switch to a 0W grade synthetic motor oil, oh man what a difference when starting and heating in -20 and below cold.

4) Use your seat heaters, and let the engine warm up before turning on the ventilation heater (this takes some getting used to and dry to breathe downwards instead of into your front windshield through your mouth)

Cheers

 

Hmmm. I live in Toronto and I never had any issues with my heater.

I have the dual zone automatic climate control. I always leave in auto setting with the temperature set to 21°C. The fan setting is set very low for the first 3-4 minutes. As the matter of fact I have no idea the fan speed as the display does not indicate this in auto mode. I can only feel by putting my hands in front of the vent. I can feel the heat after 4 minutes of driving. The fan speed may change depending on the difference between cabin temperature and the desired temperature.

I never need to touch this control regardless it is warm or cold or deep freeze outside. This is the best car I have owned for climate control. Maybe I am lucky?

I do see the temperature gauge not going up to 80°C even I already drive 8 kilometres (6 kilometres in highway). But this did not bother me as the cabin temperature is always comfortable.

 

The low viscosity oil used in our engines today does result in the slow warming of the engine. Your Canadian winters only exacerbate the problem. The expensive option is a block heater but blocking off 50 to 70% of the radiator will make a big difference.