I have not heard of knee discomfort. I have long legs and have no problems. Can someone explain to me please?

 

Yup.

The right side of my knee -- that little bump of a bone hits the hard plastic of the e-brake.


See https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...highlight=knee

 

I covered mine to, hug difference, Thanks for taking the lead! H

 

I installed the pipe insulation on the grill last weekend and it has made a significant difference. I had been freaking out on the loss of MPG with new tires and this fix has gone a long way to overcoming the drop.

Thanks to MSantos for the tip and the information on using the block heater year round. I'm planning on having one installed during my next service.

Thanks also to NoFlash for the EB tip. The handle hits in a very uncomfortable place for me and this has help a lot.

 

Score another one for GH.com!

 

I bought some pipe insulation and installed on the upper row closest to the hood only. The left side of the top and bottom rows of the lower grill were comes blocked already in my 2008 HCH, and the lower right row is where the block heater cord comes out, so I decided not to block there. That leaves only the upper right side of the lower grill, and I thought it night look odd having it only in the one spot there, so I left it out. I hope just blocking this top row still helps.

In any case, I am not that knowledable in car engines, so this may be a no-brainer question for others, but what does a radiator fan sound like when it comes on? i don't have a scan guage to watch my engine temps.

Thanks!

 

I usually only hear the radiator fan in warm weather. When you turn off the ignition to park your car and you get out, you can hear a fan going in the front part of the engine compartment. It usually takes a minute or two for it to cool the engine down, and then it turns itself off and the car is silent.

I put pipe insulation in my grille last week, and I noticed that when we had one particularly warm day (temps were nearly 50 degrees F outside), after I parked the car in the garage, I heard the radiator fan go on. So I removed some of the pipe insulation. I'm going to re-insert it tomorrow because the weather report is predicting temps in the teens.

 

With the pipe insulation in just the upper grills and temps at -8 and -23 with wind chill I was able to get 41mpg on my 15-minute morning commute and the car was able to sustain normal operating temps.

Pipe insulation is a must-do winter mod for the HCHII.

Cheers, nf

P.S. Post duplicated in pipe insulation thread for reference.

 

I bought my 2006 HCH two days ago, so I don't have much experience yet. After reading this thread, I bought some pipe insulation today. I will probably try out the pipe insulation tomorrow, but I will definitly use it next winter.

I also watched the coolant temp a bit closer on the Scangauge II, and I noticed on my 45 min commute that the temp never went higher than 80C (176F)! Shouldn't it go up to 90C (194F)??

The outside temprature was not THAT low this week (maybe between 3C (37F) and 14C (57F)).

 

Lori

90C is the maximum it should be at. The key of course is to have the coolant temps between 70C and 90C, so if you are reading 80C on the scangauge then you are riding the sweet spot already.

For example: When my outside air temperature is around -40C the engine coolant temperature never goes above 65C with the grille completely blocked and never drving faster than 60km/h. Can you imagine what the coolant temperature would be like if the grille was NOT blocked at all?
In your case I would only block the two bottom rows (at most) and see if that helps a little.

Cheers;

MSantos