Preconditioning and memory options

D

Drew Peaballs

New Member
Is there any way to have the car turn on heated seats/rear defrost when preconditioning or even when I start the thing? Or remember that I prefer it in sport mode and the buttwarmer on? This is my first car from the last two decades so some of these bells and whistles are nice, but feel like they fall short. My old accord's buttwarmer was a physical switch that just lived on Low for the winter. here I have to push it twice(when I remember) After I've told the car "hey dude, I will be driving you soon - get nice and toasty for me".

It's a little annoying as one of the major features for me is to precondition the car in the winter. this gets the juices flowing but it still takes a while to warm up and doesn't really help when I have to scrape the ice/snow off the back. especially if I only remember 10-15 min before I leave.
 
Not sure about the rear defrost but the seat warmer and windshield defrost will come on depending on the temp. There is no setting to change that.
 
I'm intentional about giving it 20 to 30 minutes, especially when it's parked in 18° F chill (like this morning). Agree it would be nice to have rear window defroster turn on as well.
 
You might check the manual, but I think if you set the car in econ mode (which should be sticky). You get the green leaf icon.
If you then set pre-conditioning, I think it auto-sets the drivers seat to 1 bar. This is from memory. Someone can correct me if in error.
 
One more thing I forgot to mention. Early on some argument about whether this was Touring or all model feature, but you can schedule pre-conditioning daily in the winter. The car won't actually pre-condition unless in a specific temperature range. i.e. below 50F I believe. Anyway, in the winter time, and even in my unheated garage the car goes below 50F. So for my work-days I set the thing to pre-condition daily about 20 minutes before I drive in. So if I leave for work at say 7am daily, I set the car to pre-condition for 6:40am. You get the idea.

This all works in my experience, but due to the relatively small traction battery (say 25-50miles of range), this feature is best used in concert with a level 2 charger that doesn't come with the car. I have level 2 40amp EVSE which the car's charger uses at much as it can (want to say maybe ~30amp). Anyway, with level2 you get charging and pre-conditioning at the same time. This can all be done with level 1, but doesn't work for my application. If the car gets connected to level 1 it takes too long to charge and pre-condition since it cannot both charge and pre-condition at the same time when using level1.

My car will, and I've tested this, pre-condition even with no charger attached provided good enough state of charge, but when my winter range (in my case presently) is 24miles, I don't have "range to spare" to "pay" for pre-conditioning. If I get in the car with 20 or fewer miles of range it isn't worth it to me.

Pre-condition = yes. Level 2 charger plugged in = yes. --> good to go.
(Only level 1, or no charger connected -> I'd say forget about it).
 
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