>>> Carl Hansen <carl_hansen@IEEE.ORG> 01/01 7:53 PM >>>
<clipped>
All my life I grew up with Block heaters.  If you were cheep, you put in a
radiator hose heater, but we all knew they were fools, or just lazy.  When
it got down below, oh say, -20 �F, we would plug our cars in an hour before
we would leave.  That warmed up the oil in my Beetle, and the water in
dad's Dodge/Ford/Toyota enough, or whatever he had at one time or another.
>>

When I lived in Boulder, Co, with my then new Audi, I used an old electric blanket folded in quarters and draped over the engine at night - battery and all.  With the same extension cord, I run a 60W light bulb into the driver side foot well.  It worked very well to keep the engine warm enough and the driver compartment tolerable when I come out in the morning.  The other advantage of the light bulb is so I know I am plugged in and won't drive off with extension cord trailing behind.  

A side note: I lived in an apartment complex then and ran the extension cord out my balcony into my car park outside below the balcony.  One morning, I got to my car earlier than usual and found another car with block heater parked next to my.  But this jerk had a 1-3 adapter plug and taped into my extension cord for power!  I don't know how long he/she had been doing that! Talk about being steaming mad.. I should have left it plugged in but with the live wire attached to the car body and give the SOB a good jolt when he/she touch the car!  Anyway, I changed the configuration to make sure that the end of the extension cord is locked under the engine compartment!

Yau-Man Chan
87 GL