Treatz

Hey all

so here's my story,
usually i'm having to get my block heater fixed yearly, at least it seems that way.

so this year I was using my block heater and all was well until i noticed that teh car seemed to be starting cold as if it wasn't even plugged in.

at work is where i'll usually plug it in because I have a switched power outlet for outside that has a Ground fault interrupt. so basically i arrive at work, plug in the car and around 4pm (i leave at 7) i'll flip the switch inside my shop which will power the outside plug

however, lately at the shop OR my house it trips the circut breaker,
so I took the car in, warranty has expired but the block heater still has a warranty (got it repaired feburary 5th 2009, at 83000km) so they replaced the heater, took it home and to the shop and it's still tripping breakers.

they looked further into the problem and found out that there are 2 power cords, one leading from the front of the car, and one leading from the block heater. this 2 cord solution costs approximately @ $200.00 for both cords and is a bit ridiculous IMHO.

the dealer is claming that they'll honor the warranty on the block heater and the cord leading from the block but not the cord leading from the front of the car.

does this even make sense..

seems to me only 1 of 3 things can go wrong in a block heater setup, the front cord, the block cord and the block heater

now i think the issue has been the front cord, since everything was working fine and it just started popping, they replaced the block heather (bonus for me, new block heather) un-necessarily if that's the case.

any insight
and thoughts or similar experiences?

157dB

Have them install a new block heater with cord and splice in
your own version of their $200 cord for less than $10.

And yes, it makes perfectly good sense to only honor one cord,
the one closest to the heater....
A cord is a cord.
Did it get damaged? They dont just go bad...

Treatz

That's what I'm wondering if its even a cord issue. I don't want to pay for the front cord and then find out that's not the issue.

I'm at a complete loss here so I wanted to see if forum users had a similar experience

157dB

Galvanic corrosion is damaging the block heater when it is plugged in.
Current is leaking and the GFCI is being tripped.
I would suspect a bad ground loop somewhere
either at home or at work.
Get the DVM out and track it down.
Are both electrical supplies properly grounded (home and work)?

Treatz

i've plugged in several different cars both at home and at work, only my car causes the breakers to trip.

how do i track down this ground loop?

Treatz

as an update:

the block heater is still "broken"
however, when I was having the issues it was -2 degrees celsius and higher. I wasn't actually using the block heater as it was warm, but for testing i plugged it in at the shop and at home with secveral different extension cords and it was blowing breakers. The home breaker is a 15amp, the work unit I have to call the electrician.

at any rate the last 2 nights have been extremely cold, -20 celsius. so just to see i plugged in the block heater. It worked, it didn't trip my panel at home or at the shop and i know it worked because the car started up in -20 weather as if it was summer, and i had heat within 30 seconds.

any ideas as to why?
the only theory i can come up with is the front cord, or the cord to the block may in fact be damaged and when it was -3 and warmer the moisture affected the cord, now that it's -20 that moisture is gone / frozen and the cord is ok?

157dB

Tripping breakers or GFCIs?

Treatz

at home it trips the panel,
at work it trips the actual plug, the external plug itself has the test / reset on the plug.

so when i plug in the car at home, the panel in the house will trip
when i plug in at work the actual plug itself trips, i can then press reset on the plug itself. SO i do. Then i replug the car and it trips again.

Treatz

ok so i think i've solved the issue:

the block heater started working again when the weather got really cold, It's -!5 to -20 here so i started theorizing.

why would the block heater trip when it was -3 to 5 degrees celsius and work fine when it was -20?

the theory was that when it was warmer moisture must be getting in to the plug causing an arc or draw in the system. when it was -20 the moisture that was trapped in the plug dissapated.

so going with this theory i took it to my regular mechanic and he took a look and we believe we found the culprit>

the front cable rests just behind the grille and then connects to the 2nd cable that goes to the block. THe 2 cables are joined and fairly well proteted BUT there was absolutel NO DIALECTRIC silione grease in there. as a result the plug started to corrode. So my mech cleaned out the corossion, and gooped it up with the dialetctic silicone grease and reconnected and sealed everything up.

i'm in the middle of a cold spell currently so i won't know if it's going to start acting up again until it gets warmer, but i think we nipped this in the butt.

Hopefully this will help someone else if they're experiencing the same issues.

157dB

yEP, stray electricity tripping the GFCIs.