Do These Dipstick Oil Heaters work?

[Jim Ed]

Kat's 15200 90 Watt, 120 Volt Dipstick Style Oil Heater



I think there are two different sizes.
The smaller one might fit the VW Beetle dipstick hole.

[fmartin_gila]

While growing up (during the 40s & early 50s) in a small town in SD, most everybody had headbolt replacement heaters in their vehicles and over my working years as a fleet mechanic, I installed numerous tank type heaters on a lot of vehicles, these were all water cooled. I have not had any experience with the dipstick type heaters, but would guess most any way to put some heat to the engine would be a great aid to starting. You may even consider just keeping a work light laying on top of the block overnight as a means of keeping some heat under the engine cover. As I recall, there are also available some type of pad type heaters which you may or may not find suitable for your needs. Hope this is of some help to you.

Fred

[Stray Catalyst]

Most of the block heaters I've seen are either for the coolant (not too useful for VW's) or magnetic... which is also useless for us. The dipstick heater may work, I haven't tried one on any of my aircooled vehicles. How cold is your area? I ran my 74 Bug all winter for a few years with no difficulties, and I'm in New England.

Stray

[goober]

I haven't actually tried this dipstick oil heater but 90 watts doesn't seem to be very much heat on a -10 deg F day. But if it kept the oil a little less viscus, it might aid in starting.

It's 23 inches long. You probably wouldn't be able to easily close your decklid unless it was fairly flexible.

[Bruce2]

I was thinking the opposite. 90W is a LOT of heat going directly into the oil. If you get this, you will need to put it on a timer. There's no sense in leaving it on overnight. Just set it to turn on half an hour before you go.

[crvc]

When I first moved to Wyoming I didn't have a garage. I used a battery warmer. By keeping it plugged in all night I was able to start the bug at 6AM, twenty below.

kevin

[crvc]

I had one if those dipstick heaters years ago. It's about three feet long and I used it to prevent freezing of the stand pipe to my horse's water trough. The ad shows three different heating pads. Any of those should work with the battery. Just put it in the battery tray with the battery atop it.

kevin

[Bruce2]

When I first moved to Wyoming I didn't have a garage. I used a battery warmer. By keeping it plugged in all night I was able to start the bug at 6AM, twenty below.

kevin

A big part of getting a car started at those temps is 0W-20 engine oil.

[MikeGatch]

My first winter in my bug Saw 30 below zero for several days and Having everything stock/well set up is your best bet. I didn't think it was possible for an engine to start turning over that slow, but the bug did it and kept running no issues. rew...........rew..............fire-run No one else I know was able to get their car started that week.

[Marc]

Here in Seattle we seldom have to deal with temperature extremes, but years ago I was stationed in Idaho one winter when the mercury spent more time below zero than above. A roommate with a 6V Beetle used a reflector lamp like this:
under his engine, propped up against the bottom. A 100W light bulb kept the oil warm enough overnight to allow it to start in the morning and reduced the accumulation of scum from condensation. Crude but effective...