Razor_nl
10+ Year Contributor
- 73
- 0
- May 27, 2008
-
Noordwijk,
Europe
Today I noticed something weird. It was raining and cold, typical Dutch weather. (yes, in july) My rear window was getting all foggy so I turned on the rear window heating.
Usually I do this when driving, but today it happened to be that I turned it on when standing still in front of a traffic light. I turned it on, and I felt and heard my rpm go down (to about ~750) for a few secs and then go up again. I didn't really pay attention to this since my idle isn't perfect anyway. When coming to a stop it goes down to 100rpm and then stalls or goes back up to an idle rpm of about ~900, sometimes dancing between 700~1000, sometimes stable. Not sure yet where this problem comes from, I have a feeling it's my ISC, need to measure it. The car runs just fine besides this.
Anyway, a bit later on my trip my window was clear again so I disabled the heating again. Again, I did this when standing still. I noticed my rpm went up to ~1000 for a few secs, and then went down to ~900.
So now it got me thinking... huh?!
I turned on the heating, rpm dropped a bit and went up again. Turned it off, rpm went up a bit and then down.. etc. So when I reached my destination I parked my car, let the engine run and went testing a bit.
Turning lights on/off has a similar effect but not as much change in rpm.
Turning airco on/off has a similar effect, same rpm drop/gain.
Turning radio on/off has no effect.
Turning boost controller or AFC neo on/off has no effect.
Turning blower on/off has effect but not as much, about the same as lights.
I do have a decent audio install (its my pure daily driver, not track or drag) but the amp for the subs is connected via a powercap and the music was off anyway, so I assume this isn't related to it.
I tried it also in my mom's '08 Kia Picanto (
) , my dad's '06 Opel Vectra and my gf's '95 Mazda MX3 (all like 100% stock) and none of them showed any change in rpm after turning any of the above on/off.
So now I was thinking... HMMM what could this be. I've read something here yesterday about the battery not being able to get charged fully causing problems like I have with the stalling. This sounds logical to me, maybe if the battery needs to power extra devices (such as the window heating) it gets a power drop and therefor rpm drops a bit because the ISC gets less power? Is there anything else that could relate these things together ?
Maybe this sounds really stupid, I'm not that much of a technician.
Of course I can go testing things but I'd like some input from you guys before I go do stuff. Like I said before, I'm not a big mechanic unfortunately
Usually I do this when driving, but today it happened to be that I turned it on when standing still in front of a traffic light. I turned it on, and I felt and heard my rpm go down (to about ~750) for a few secs and then go up again. I didn't really pay attention to this since my idle isn't perfect anyway. When coming to a stop it goes down to 100rpm and then stalls or goes back up to an idle rpm of about ~900, sometimes dancing between 700~1000, sometimes stable. Not sure yet where this problem comes from, I have a feeling it's my ISC, need to measure it. The car runs just fine besides this.
Anyway, a bit later on my trip my window was clear again so I disabled the heating again. Again, I did this when standing still. I noticed my rpm went up to ~1000 for a few secs, and then went down to ~900.
So now it got me thinking... huh?!

I turned on the heating, rpm dropped a bit and went up again. Turned it off, rpm went up a bit and then down.. etc. So when I reached my destination I parked my car, let the engine run and went testing a bit.
Turning lights on/off has a similar effect but not as much change in rpm.
Turning airco on/off has a similar effect, same rpm drop/gain.
Turning radio on/off has no effect.
Turning boost controller or AFC neo on/off has no effect.
Turning blower on/off has effect but not as much, about the same as lights.
I do have a decent audio install (its my pure daily driver, not track or drag) but the amp for the subs is connected via a powercap and the music was off anyway, so I assume this isn't related to it.
I tried it also in my mom's '08 Kia Picanto (
) , my dad's '06 Opel Vectra and my gf's '95 Mazda MX3 (all like 100% stock) and none of them showed any change in rpm after turning any of the above on/off.So now I was thinking... HMMM what could this be. I've read something here yesterday about the battery not being able to get charged fully causing problems like I have with the stalling. This sounds logical to me, maybe if the battery needs to power extra devices (such as the window heating) it gets a power drop and therefor rpm drops a bit because the ISC gets less power? Is there anything else that could relate these things together ?
Maybe this sounds really stupid, I'm not that much of a technician.
Of course I can go testing things but I'd like some input from you guys before I go do stuff. Like I said before, I'm not a big mechanic unfortunately


