Remote start and heating the interior

Scanned the manual, did not find answer. When remote starting vehicle in cold weather, the interior is not warming up despite setting seat, defrost, heater, and steering wheel heater ON. Does the truck need to sense an occupant before these functions turn on? Am I doing something wrong procedural?
Thanks for your input!

 

I believe the trick is to leave the system in manual when you shut it off. IOW, have it in heat mode with a fan speed selected and the temp set to what you want. IDK why leaving it in auto prevents heating. But it does.

 

Thanks!!! I'll give that a try.

 

Dumb. Unlike any other brand I’ve owned.

 

A person has to be in the seat to heat the seat. Steering wheel not so much

 

1. seat is induction, so unless something with mass sits, nothing gets heated
2. never use auto to heat the interior (it will change the temp and output vents)
3. never use defrost to clean the windshield (the system will change the output vents)
4. the only mode i can find that wont change is to set the mode to defrost/feet and speed to full manually
5. steering wheel will heat if switch is on, not regulated by anything from what i can tell

 

I set the system to manual before I locked the rig last night. Auto started this morning and nothing was heated. Steering wheel, seat, defrost, interior heat,. Ice cold inside the truck. Seems auto start only heats the engine and that’s it. Kind of dumb if you ask me. I’ll try to play around with the settings for interior heat and defrost. You would think that would be a no-brainer with auto start, but I’m not an engenieerereer
Curious on your #3 bullet point. Can you elaborate on why not to use defrost to defrost the windows?

 

Wife's Kia Telluride is kinda the same but not as bad. It turns everything on, except the seats, which with leather is kind of important but at least it warms up. It will only run for 10 minutes though, defaults to 3 minutes which both settings are dumb. It also will not start the car if you haven't used it in 14 days. What does that have to do with anything. We get back from a holiday last winter and are welcomed home to -35C temps and as we're waiting for our bags I figure no problem, just start the car and have it nice and warm for us (except the seats), but nope, error message about the car hasn't been started for 14 days and must be started manually before the remote start will operate!

What kind of idiots do they have actually thinking ANY of this is a good thing or even practical. After that I just disabled our "Kia Connect" account because frankly it was frustrating to use and was only there for them to track the vehicle etc. anyway. Seems like all these "connected" services are crap. They are definitely way behind the aftermarket car starters that we have all been using in our cars for the past 20 years.

 

So, now I'm curious if the aftermarket remote start systems enable the heat functions to warm up the cab?

 

So when you say the seat is induction and only heats if mass is on it, would that meat there is some kind of pressure switch or contacts? Would love to figure out a way to override it.

 

I use the app command start all the time now that it’s cold and I leave it on auto set to 20c with the heated wheel and seat on and when I come to the truck it’s warm inside and ready to go no problems with the 10min run time. It was -20c today

 

The key here is where your "auto" settings are. So, if you set your climate controlled to "auto" then set the temp to say 73°, then set seat heat to "auto" then steering wheel to "auto" & leave it there. Next time you remote start, it should all be your "auto" settings, & be warm.

 

Raven,
Can you elaborate on setting seat heat and steering wheel to “auto”. Is there any other mode than “on”?
I leave steering wheel heat on and seat heat at max (3 leds) and they are always cold after remote start.

Tomorrow, I’ll check if my climate control to see if set to auto and turn that off to see if that helps.

 

This! Set what you want before shutting down. Also, I leave my heated seats and wheel set to On and they’re nice and toasty when we climb in - no one sitting in them.

 

Mine do FA until I sit in them, same as our Lexus and Venza

Steering wheel is hot

 

My bad, the auto on seats & wheel are on wife's Lexus. Disregard.
@PNW Tundra Mike has the idea for Tundra.

 

its like a microwave concept to heat things, unless something is there, nothing to warm up.

 

I get the induction thing but how does it know your sitting on the seat? Is there a switch or contacts in the seats? I know that if I have something heavy in the passenger seat the seatbelt chime goes off but what triggers it?

 

It doesn’t. I turn on all the heated seats and when my family gets in, they’re all warm. Has nothing to do with whether someone is sitting in them.

 

I have never seen an induction seat heater. And for induction you need ferrous target object, and IIRC my blood iron isn't that high. ;-). I have installed a few and they are always just plain old resistance heat pads, like a heating pad for physical therapy, just shaped for the seat bottom and seat back. Now, they could have it so that the seat occupancy sensor switch opens that circuit unless someone's butt is planted there. But I honestly haven't really tested this myself.

 

Not sure what’s wrong with you guys but literally have no troubles with this. Cab is warm every morning when I get in to go to work at 6am.

 

16 degree here in PA. With remote start the truck was barely warm when I got in with only a 10 min timer. Coolant temp barely above the first line.
I had the seat warmer on, left it on last night. Probably due to no weight on the seat, the leather seat cover is not contacting the heating pad enough. With no one on seat the heating pad isn’t heating up the leather enough so that’s probably why it’s not as hot as people like, but you can feel it slightly warm once you sit on it. Combine with cold cabin temps. The seat may feel cold when you into it at first.

 

Likewise. This whole thread is very confusing to me. My heater is always set to auto at around 68-70 degrees. With the seat and steering wheel heaters on, everything is always toasty after a remote start and a 5-10 minute warm up.

 

I may as well chime in too and say my truck is nice and toasty as well. Best part is the warm steering wheel and not having to have gloves on. They should put a heat element in the shifter too.

 

OK, so there seems to be lots of differing results with this. I specifically tried this last night because of this thread, 27* out, truck parked with seat heater on high, steering wheel heat on and heat set to high using defrost/foot heat setting, blower on high in manual setting not auto. Remote started the truck using the app, let truck run for about 8 minutes before I got in and had 100 yard walk to get to the truck. Got in and heat was blowing warm, didn't feel like the seat or steering wheel was warm. Drive was only a tenth of a mile to get home, did feel like seat was starting to warm up and steering wheel was warming up. In essence I didn't feel like the seat or steering wheel was warm when I got in so it seems the "need to be in the seat" thing is what's happening with mine. I'll test it again later today, right now it's 35* out and only getting up to 37* according to Alexa.

 

Thank you all very much for your replies!. Maybe it’s just a defect in my truck. I remote started the truck this morning then eight minutes later walked out to the truck peaked in the window. The steering wheel warmer light was on and the seat heater was on high with three red LED indicators on. Got in the truck steering wheel was cold seat was cold. Also cab was cold. May need to have it checked out with the dealer.

 

Curious what procedure you’re using. Sorry for all the questions.

 

Ha, not sure shifter needs it ... I keep the seats at 2 bars because 3 bars is too hot !

 

Yup. 3 bars is only on for a few minutes for me then down to 1 bar for a while then off. My wife can sit there with it on 3 bars all day but that might be a discussion for a different type of forum....

 

shift truck into park. Turn on seat and steering wheel heat. Set the “mode” on the HVAC to the Windshield/Feet, 70 degrees on both side. Either full blast or 1 tick down from full. Turn off truck. Lock with fob.

wake up in the morning. Turn the truck on from my phone. I usually always get out to it 8-10 minutes from when I started.

windshield is defrosted at least 90+% of the way, driver seat is toasty, steering wheel toasty. Cab is warm. I usually have to turn it down to half depending on how bundled I am.

I will admit I don’t mess around with automatic settings and I haven’t tried it with the deliberate windshield defroster button turn on. Haven’t really needed it