Just curious as to how long to pulg my truck in .
I work at night so it will plugged in during the afternoon to the evening in the garage.
I picked up a timer to use just wondering how long to set it for.
Right now in Ohio the temps have been around -0 w/ wind chill to high's in the mid teens.
Any feed back would be appeciated , even from Mayfair.

 

from what ive read around here i think 3 hours is a pretty good start

 

Do yall think it would be wise to start my truck up on breaks during the night.
All the Ford guy's do, but I think it's lame.
Mine fired up o.k this morning when I left work.
Heck some of those guy's had to break out the starting fluid to get them to fire up.

 

My manual says to plug in at least an hour. I have my timer set for 1.5 hours prior to leaving. I tried 5 hours last night, but didn't see any difference. The truck has a fuel heater and intake heater so it will start without the block heater down to -20. As far as I can see, the block heater just helps get the oil flowing faster. It certainly doesn't give me any instant heat in the cab...

 

I have mine set on the timer to turn on at 3am and off at 7 am. On most days, I start the truck at 5 am (so 2 hrs on the heat).

It's been at or around 25 - 35 degrees here when I go out and I'm rarely even getting a wait to start.

I haven't seen any noticeable difference by leaving it plugged in longer. 2 hrs has worked good for me.

 

Hi mopar98,
I'm down in Cincinnati and I plugged my in the other night from 9:30PM till 4:30AM.
I'll have to say it started right up. I don't even recall seeing the wait to start coil light come on.
Down side....it still to 8-10 miles before I got warm are blowing from the heater.
I'm wondering if there is a limit to how long you can keep it plugged in? I looked in the owners manual but did not see ant limitation.

 

cumminalong,
What kind of timer? I didn't see any wattage info in the manual. I'm wondering if one of thoes heavy duty outdoor holiday light timers will work?????

 

I checked the block heater with a watt meter. It pulled around 650 watts. Look for a timer that has three prongs and rated about 700 watts resistance load.

 

The timer I'm using is a Heavy Duty mechanical. I picked it up at Home Depot for about $9.

The block heater is rated at 750 watts. The timer is good for 1500, so no problems there.

I use a lighted extension cord.....for 2 reasons. 1 - I know when it's getting juice, and 2 - to remind my retarded self to unplug it before I drive off.

You can leave it plugged in all night, it won't do a thing; harm or good. More than 2 hrs and you're pretty much just wasting juice, it's not gonna get any warmer.

If you live in a real cold area (i.e. Alaska) most of the timers come with a few sets of trips to turn it on and off a few times. Turn it on for an hour, off an hour, on an hour, off..........That'll keep it fairly toasty and not fry your electric bill.

 

i live in fairbanks, alaska where it gets to -50 but its normaly arround -10 to -30 my truck is olu pluged in for about 1.5 to 2 hrs and i dont relly plug it in unless its -10 or colder and i havent had any problams with it starting yet my old ford 7.3 if it was even below freesing u batter plug it in bc it wont start if u whant ur truck to bewarm then u put it in put 2 1000 watt block heaters in warms up fast