Stuart's Volkswagen Golf Mk 5/V Forum

Hi Stuart enjoy reading your updates on the car as an alternative to the manufactures' websites. I have had a 2.0 GTTDI for about a year from new. very pleased with it apart from one or two issues. Are you having any problems with the heating system. i imagine that i'm not using it right as this is my first car with Air con type heating. My main problem is that it seems to take for ever to heat up from initial start-up. Can you advise what is the best setting to put it on for a very cold winters day to get the heat in the cabin quickly? Also do you know if there is a radio booklet available to get the best out of the radio functions. Your help will be much appreciated. Keep up the good work. Paul

Hi Paul,

Glad to hear that you find my website useful.

I hope that your heating problem is this. Do you have
the ECON light showing? If so, as well as disabling
the air conditioning it will also disable the
electrical coolant heater fitted to all diesel Mk 5s
which is specifically there the speedup warm-up times.
Turn this off and you should notice the car warms up
quicker in a morning.

Assuming you don't have the ECON light on and are
still having warm up problems, I can only describe the
settings I use which appear to get the car's heater
blowing out hot air in between 5 to 10 minutes:
Temperature at about 24C, fan on position 1, air
direction turned to half way between direct out of
vents and floor. ECON and recirculation turned off.
These are my Climatic settings. I'm guessing you have
the digitial Climatronic system but the settings
should be similar.

As for your radio query, I only know of the section of
the manual concerning the RCD300. This explains all
the settings but doesn't quite serve as the "how to
get the best" guide you are looking for. If you have
any specific queries about the RCD300, let me know and
I'll try to help.

Stuart

Stuart that is more than useful - many thanks and i will follow your advice.

Paul