Inversion. I've seen it flying through 500' on a frosty morning. Local coal fired power station was pumping out black smoke. When it reached the inversion it became trapped and spread across the sky like a river. Wish I'd had a camera with me
Some Scottish cars have them fitted by dealers up there.
The original Ford patent expired 2 years ago. Now anyone could do it. But car makers have "Ford patent" no can do mentality. What they should have had is "plans in place and set to roll for when it expires".
There may be other patents that are needed to make it work properly that haven't expired. Simple things like a relay so it doesn't work until engine is running so you don't flatten the battery to the point it won't start.
Fairly sure I saw them as an option on the BMW incarnation of the MINI as far back as 2002.
G.Harman
having spent a night in Deeside when the temperature dropped to -10°C, I can well understand why.
1997 and that is when I remember it from And I do not remember anything ab out chemical reactions what I remember was along the lines of a block of al uminium.
This was my query to BMW U.K.
" can you help? I have a memory of an optional extra on the 5 series some 1
5-20 years ago. It was basically a large piece of aluminium held in the eng ine compartment and heated by the engine. This piece of aluminium would ret ain some of this heat over night and thus give a more comfortable start on a cold morning.And this their reply:-
"Thank you for your online enquiry dated November 29, 2014.
I can advise that Yes this is correct. This feature was on the E39 5 Seri es (two generations ago) and was called a latent heater.
We now offer a different system, auxiliary heating, which for some vehicles in the range can be turned on shortly before departing via a remote contro l to heat the cabin.
Once again, thank you for contacting BMW UK.
Yours sincerely
BMW UK
According to my info, it was not available in the UK. Or, apparently, North America.
That sounds like a fuel burning cabin heater - the normal way of doing things.
A post to the E39 forum - which has worldwide memembers, although the majority in the US - had no one actually admitting to ever having seen this device.
So must admit to wondering if it is vapourwear?
No. I found a German forum where someone warned they could fail, releasing the salt into the coolant circuit, which damaged the engine block. Offered until
9/98, apparently.Thomas Prufer
Right. Did wonder why it apparently was never offered in NA given some parts of that have as severe winters as Germany?
Well BMW UK must be telling porkies then.
What ? My description of a large lump of aluminium heated by the engine and which BMW UK say is correct ? Where is the fuel burning cabin heater comin g from ?
I always think these forums are full of fanboys and wannabees where people have a sig alleging ownership of lots of goodies. I've no idea of the membe rship of this E39 forum and how it relates to total ownership of BMWs and w hat if any expertise its members actually have and how many read your query and could give a fiddlers about replying to it, and why would they have to 'admit' to owning it anyway
snip
I'm sorry if I have offended your assumed expertise on all things BMW but i f you aren't prepared to accept that (a) I did actually see this on a spec sheet (Why on earth would I make this up ?) and (b) BMW agree that it did e xist them I give up. The floor is yours.
Sigh. Your description of a large lump of aluminium was never correct.
Auxilliary heating tends to mean an auxilliary heater. Not some form of heat store. Which isn't going to work if the car is left unused for some time - whereas an auxilliary heater can be used at any time.
So you know nothing about this particular forum - but think it full of 'wannabees' or whatever?
You've never obviously had any dealing with BMW UK if you think them the font of all knowledge.
I'll give you just one example. Both the front struts on my E39 failed (at different times) The platform that the spring sits on sheared off. Not something you'd expect to see on any car no matter how old or even abused. BMW UK denied all knowledge of such a design fault - yet in the US had issued a re-call to add a clamp on bracket to strengthen this exact part. When this was pointed out to them they bumbled on about US roads and usage being different to the UK. Even tried to say the part was different - until pointed out it had the same part number. Could give you plenty more examples of them not knowing much about the cars they sell. And their dealers are even worse...
I'd trust the BMW sales bod to know that such a device was sold, however I'd not trust them to know what it's made of.
The large lump of aluminium is wrong according to what I've read. Latent heat store needs to involve a phase change (that's what the 'Latent' bit is), and you don't want to be doing that with Al :-)
The reason you use something with a phase change rather than just a hot something is that you can store more energy with the former.
It's a box containing (I think) a sodium acetate solution, connected to the cooling system, presumably with some control gear to use the heat.
So I reckon you were right in that there was an option. But it was never a large lump of Al.
And the auxiliary heating does sound a lot more like it's going to be a fuel burning heater. The alternative is that it's an electric one, but taking a lot of power out of your battery prior to starting when it's very cold is generally regarded as a poor move.
(and no, I'm neither a BMW owner nor a 'wannabe' - I just know how to find things on t'internet)
Sigh but my claim of the existence of this device was correct and your clai m that it didn't exist was wrong.
I never claimed to know the ins and outs of the device or how it worked. I just said I remembered seeing one on an options list and remembering that the description included a reference to a large piece of aluminium. Perhap s I was incorrect in how I remembered how it worked but the point here is n ot that my memory may have failed on that but that you with you were comple tely wrong in stating it didn't exist, no matter how it worked.
You have spent your postings denying the existence of this because you had never heard of it, because your buddies on some forum had never heard it, b ecause It didn't exist on any of the 'fully loaded' BMWs you have owned, ( an amusing statement)Even when BMW UK confirmed its existence you still con tinued to deny it.
Irrelevant to this discussion.
Please re read what I said. I said 'These forums' I've seen enough of them to know what they are like not to have to visit every one. If this particul ar one is full of very reasoned debate amongst genuine cognoscenti then fai r enough but it would be an exception. Besides they weren't much cop in this instance were they ? They hadn't hear d of this device. Your post elicited no response, therefore it didn't exist . Not really very logical reasoning that, is it ?
Wonder again. Your vapourware has materialised.
Well only to the extent that I've been buying their cars for the last 20 ye ars. I never claimed they were the font of all knowledge I merely posted a copy of my query and their answer.
You were the person insisting that because you hadn't heard of this device, nor had any of the vaunted experts on the E39 forum, therefore it couldn't exist. Except that it now transpires it did exist and you were utterly wro ng
. Irrelevant to the subject at hand. I imagine it would take very little trou ble to turn up examples of sterling service from BMW U.K.
Well you found your acorn didn't you. Now you know something you didn't whe n you started. Glad I could help you see.
I must confess I always considered your postings on this forum to be reaso nable and informative. I don't know why you've gone ape on this one.
Pax vobiscum
Common on modern diesels, especially in cold climates - they're so thermally efficient that heaters are often s**te, so Eber/Webasto-style spaceheaters are necessary. All it needs is a timer. Just like the factory-fit Eber-plus-timer on our '80s VW camper...
and which BMW UK say is correct ? Where is the fuel burning cabin heater c oming from ?
Well I didn't ask a BMW sales bod. but this Wiki page
has some interesting comments on BMW latent heat devices. There is one comm ent about using sand to store engine heat to be released later. This is clo ser to what I remember. After all electric storage heaters use bricks or co ncrete blocks to store heat. These obviously would be too heavy for use in a car, hence possibly, the concept of using aluminium.
And for those still doubting the existence of these item 538 on this option s list shows them
Bimmerforums? Hmm. Most be a more erudite forum than that previously mentio ned.
I don't think efficiency comes into it. All 100bhp engines, whatever the fuel will produce the same heat energy (approximately). Diesels engines tend to have considerably more thermal mass though so they take longer to warm up.
Tim
Surely if they're using less fuel to produce that 100bhp, they'll produce less heat?
BHP *is* heat. An I/C engine is a heat engine that turns heat into motive power. A diesel gets more heat from a given volume of fuel but all this means is that fuel to heat conversion is more efficient. BHP for BHP, the heat output is the same. In general a Diesel engine is bigger and heavier to extract this extra heat from the fuel so consequently have longer warm up times.
In addition, in this day and age cooling systems are optimised to speed up the *engine* warm up, not the cabin warm up, to reduce emissions. Tim
Or, in short, they produce more heat from less fuel for any given power output.
Tim
Did you actually read what I wrote? I'll give you a clue:-
**********From: Dave Plowman (News) Subject: Re: car auxhilliary heater Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 11:05 Newsgroups: uk.d-i-y
Never heard of that one.
**********
Well, you managed to remember one bit wrong but insist the other bit is right?
For something to exist other than in a catalogue, someone somewhere would have to have seen one. And despite some research, I can't find any evidence of anyone who has. But then you probably believe the MPG etc claims in advertising blurb too...
You think you've had reply from the Technical Director (or whatever) of BMW?
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