If you have a car, do you let it warm up for...

@ninalanyon When visiting Norway on holiday with friends back in the late 1980s, we were puzzled for a time by seeing a line of parked cars each a short mains flex with a plug on the end, protruding from the front grille.

Then we twigged.

We were a fair way North of the Arctic Circle, the cars were at the road-head for a ferry serving remote fjord-side villages so probably parked there for days or weeks at a time; and the leads were of heaters to bring the fuel, engine and interior to reasonable temperature from Arctic chill. We could not seen any obvious signs of mains sockets there to plug them into, though. Perhaps the owners used small generators.

@ArishMell It used to be the case that many factory car parks had a post with a mains socket at every parking space. But the advent lightweight aluminium engines that warm up rapidly meant that they really weren't necessary. It's a pity that electric cars didn't arrive sooner, Norway had the infrastructure and scrapped it. I did have one car with an engine block heater but I only used it on the very coldest days. The heater is just a small immersion heater. You break out a plug in the engine block and press fit the heater.

Defa used to make diesel fuelled block heaters too with timers.

@ninalanyon Certainly more sophisticated than a photograph I remember seeing from Russia, I think, of a row of lorries standing with their engines over small open fires (presumably in steel trays to protect them from the snow). Their drivers were in a group to one side, chatting among themselves while their vehicles warmed up.

@ArishMell That still happens I believe if they use poor quality diesel fuel, if it gets too cold it won't flow so you have to light a fire under the fuel tank. In Norway I have been told that the diesel fuel that is sold in the winter has a different formulation compared to what is used in the summer so as to avoid that problem.