block heater

smarty wrote:
I found a way to get rid of my block heater....moved to new mexico :)

I live in NM. Was 15° overnight last October 10.

I found a way to get rid of my block heater....moved to new mexico :)

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.

can we just stay on topic, all i want to do is check my cord or my heater its self to see which is bad. and i dont have a fancy plug with a element on it. just a simple 3 prong male plug

I almost never plug in my block heater. My Duramax has started many times in below zero temps without it. I think you have other issues to deal with.
B.O.

Did you buy refuel in the last couple of weeks?

There's really no way having it plugged in can make it harder to start.
If you're having to crank it more, you may have injector, HP pump or something else causing pressure issues.

Lynnmor wrote:
Check for continuity between the prongs of the cord.

not a good indicator. Not sure on what the starting year is but the block heater after a certain year has a thermostat in the line so it won't turn on above a certain temperature, somewhere around freezing. So checking for continuity may show an open when it is in reality just fine.

I know this is the case on the 2015, and the 2004.5 has no thermostat.

I checked continuity between the positive and negative prongs on my plug and showed continuity,

No it seemed harder to start with it pluged in then it did before when i had it pluged in couple weeks ago

machunt wrote:
how do i check the cord or heater to see which is bad?

If you have an electric meter, first see if that's moving.