block heater
i have a 2013 chevy 1 ton dually, doesel of course. after plugging in my block heater over night, it seemed hard to start. up untill now everything seemen fine. i do have 120 volts at my plug in.
Forum Discussion
I've got block heaters on 3 diesel vehicles and 3 gas vehicles here in Los Anchorage. Although some of the fleet is not used quite often, I'll use the block heater on vehicles I will be using if the temps are 15 degrees or colder.
- Make sure you're getting power from your house: attach that extension cord to a hair dryer, trouble light, something.
- If power's good from the house, plug in the heater on a cold morning. Some heaters do have internal thermostats and won't kick on above a certain temp.
- Listen closely for a sound inside the hood: it can be a sparking sound, a whirring sound, or just a hum. That would indicate the heater is working. FWIW, heaters do fail (in a variety of ways), but in somewhere north of 40 years of driving in Alaska, I've never seen a failure where the heater element/circulator/itself was good while the attached electrical wiring was bad: in other words, if you have power to the male plug of the heater, either it works or it's the heater itself that's failed.
As others have noted, and I've had similar experiences, plugging in a failed heater will not make cranking more difficult. Difficult cranking is something else.
- Make sure you're getting power from your house: attach that extension cord to a hair dryer, trouble light, something.
- If power's good from the house, plug in the heater on a cold morning. Some heaters do have internal thermostats and won't kick on above a certain temp.
- Listen closely for a sound inside the hood: it can be a sparking sound, a whirring sound, or just a hum. That would indicate the heater is working. FWIW, heaters do fail (in a variety of ways), but in somewhere north of 40 years of driving in Alaska, I've never seen a failure where the heater element/circulator/itself was good while the attached electrical wiring was bad: in other words, if you have power to the male plug of the heater, either it works or it's the heater itself that's failed.
As others have noted, and I've had similar experiences, plugging in a failed heater will not make cranking more difficult. Difficult cranking is something else.
