To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
This cartridge heater clips into the cavity of your engine block and submerges in the coolant to keep engine fluids from thickening. Results in easier start-ups, faster heating of your cab, and less wear and tear on your vehicle in cold weather.
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Benefits of a Heated Engine
Start your engine easier and warm your cab faster in cold weather with this cartridge-style engine block heater. Heating your engine coolant keeps it from thickening and freezing, resulting in more reliable start-ups and smoother operation altogether. It also lessens the workload and extends the life of your vehicle's battery. And because starting your engine when it's warm creates less condensation in the engine block than starting it when it's cold, your engine will get better initial fuel vaporization, which causes fewer emissions and less pollution.
Cartridge-Style Heater
This cartridge-style heater simply clips into the cavity of your engine block. There is no need to remove the core frost plug. The power cord on the heater is removable so that you won't need to buy a whole new heater if the cord gets damaged. The cord can be routed through your grille for easy access to a 120-volt outlet or extension cord. Make sure the heating element is fully submerged in the coolant before plugging it in.
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to be taking a look at Kat's Heaters custom fit cartridge style engine block heater. You'll want to refer to the fit guide here etrailer.com to determine which block heater is going to be appropriate for your vehicle and the engine. These cartridge style heaters are custom fit for your engines, and just slide right into the block, and transfer heat through the block to help warm up the coolant, to allow for easier starting and quicker heat up times. So what this means for you is you don't have to worry about difficult starts, making it for a longer time in the morning to get started, or potentially miss work. The people who can benefit from this most are ones that drive diesel engines. Diesels use glow plugs to heat the engine.
However, sometimes it can take several key cycles to get the engine warm enough to properly start. Having a block heater on it like this will help ensure that it will fire right up. Additionally, your engine is going to heat up faster since its had a headstart, so you're going to have heat coming out your events faster on your way to work. It features a five foot cord that can be routed up to your grill area, where it can be mounted permanently.So whenever you want to use it, you can simply plug an extension cord in, plug it into the wall, and it'll start to heat up your block. The heater produces 400 watts of power.
And this is pretty substantial, so this is going to warm it up fairly quickly and evenly throughout. Even though it does come from a central point. It's made of a durable cast aluminum, so it's going to be lightweight and corrosion resistant. We're under our vehicle now. We're going to show you a typical installation.
Looking at the backside of our engine block, now the backside isn't always where they're going to be, but it will be on your engine block. You are looking for a cavity. You can see ours right up here. Now we'll take our heater. We're going to insert it in the hole.
It's a good idea to take some compressed air or something and blow out any dirt and debris in the hole. And then also coat your heater with silicone. This will help transfer heat better, as well as keep out moisture from getting inside.We're not going to be coating ours with silicone today for demonstration purposes, but afterwards you'd simply slide it in. And that's what it'll look like when you've got it fully inserted. As you can see, it's flush up against the block, and our clip has clipped around the side of the block there, and this will ensure that it can't come back out. Next you'll just route the wire up to the front of the vehicle. A good place for it is behind the grill, where you can tuck it back out of the way, and you won't be able to see it, but you can access it to plug it in when you need it. Whenever you're routing your wire, you want to avoid any moving objects such as your steering or drive train components. And any excessively hot objects, such as your exhaust. So you can see here we've got our cord routed to the front of the vehicle right in the center.We can now plug it in with an extension cord, and start heating up our engine. And then if we're not using it, we can easily tuck it back out of the way, and you don't even know it's there. There is no on or off switch, as soon as you plug it in it begins to heat. Now we do have ours on a lift. You'll most likely be doing this on the ground. We've had it plugged in for about 20 minutes. Let's check our temperatures. At the plug, we're measuring about 110 degrees. You can see as we take a measurement on the side of our block, we're at about 100 degrees, so it's spreading pretty well throughout our engine. So as you can imagine, if it was 19 degrees outside, this would be like starting your vehicle on a warm summer day. And that completes our look at Kat's Heaters custom fit cartridge style engine block heaters.
Average Customer Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars (64 Customer Reviews)
This cartridge heater clips into the cavity of your engine block and submerges in the coolant to keep engine fluids from thickening. Results in easier start-ups, faster heating of your cab, and less wear and tear on your vehicle in cold weather.
80% perfect fit! The only thing missing is 90 degree angle for the power cord at the heater(like GM original) also the power cord is not long enough for 2017 Canyon! Otherwise excellent for the price! 711852
The GMC Canyon did not have a block heater, and I wanted one that was exactly like the OE heater. etrailer was able to provide the heater I needed, and especially in this part of the country starting a car at -20f without preheat is very hard on the engine. This works perfectly. 651039
Took a minute to install, cost a fraction of the oem part, and it works like a dream. I live in Winnipeg Canada and things get real cold up here. When it reaches -35 a good block heater is a must and this us a good block heater. 448956
Installed the heater -- easy schmeasy! Waiting for cold weather to see how effective the heater will warm the car. 305509
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
I live in northern Ontario, Canada. Average temp is -20 but has gone as low as -30/-35. This heater was installed in a 2016 Hyundai Elantra GLS 2.0 engine. Installation was easy once the battery box was removed. Slipped in the cavity real nice. The heater was plugged in for 4 hours at -20c. I then tested the engine for warmth. To my surprise the engine block was warm to the touch and the snow had a small circle on the hood where it started to melt. This surpassed my expectation, and I highly recommend this heater. Uses 350 watts per hr. That's less than a frost plug heater at 550 watts per hr. Shipping, packaging and instructions all great. 598973
Daniel V - 01/21/2020Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
I am still trying to get it to work pro perly 604336
William - 02/13/2020Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Peoduct fit perfectly after finding the right place to install. Very easy to install as well. 335631
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Product works fine but fitment was not good in my '08 Tacoma. Despite cleaning the hole on the block the heater would only go on about 2/3 of the way. I had to take 80 grit sand paper to the heater. Took about 5 thousandths off and it went in. Shouldn't have to do this. 467397
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Got it hooked up and after a fix it works. There is nothing that orients the plug to the body. I unhooked it to get it in, plugged it in and hit an issue: it tripped the GFI. It seems one terminal is on a thermostat that opens the connection to the pin and switches to ground. This pin MUST end up as the 120V line and NOT the neutral line. My first hookup had it as the neutral. That trips a GFI when it cycles off and would burn up the heater on a non-GFI outlet as it would not shutoff like a GFI. I unplugged and flipped it around. That got the T-stat line on the 120V, and it will heat the coolant about 35 degrees over ambient. Not sure how to find this without trial and error, but it should probably be keyed to prevent this issue. 604504
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Doesn't fit like the original part. That works because it's tight enough but still have 0,5 inch to go until it clips correctly. The wire can be 1-2 feet longer too. Not 100% satisfy, sorry. 587899
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Although these are marketed as fitting a '08 FJ, a '14 & '15 4Runner & Tundra; They do not. They will not fit in the specified location, they came apart and now they are stuck in the engine block and are useless pieces of junk. DO NOT BUY THIS!! Even my mechanic says these are not worth it. I contacted ETrailer.com and they wouldn't accept a return. 439898
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Product is good so far we will see when things get truly cold here in Alaska. The unit is a little long for my car bit fit in just fine. I will keep etrailer notified of any issues... 447992
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Product still works great! We just had a blast of old man winter with temps in the single digits. This unit does an awesome job as far as helping to keep the engine block warmer, and makes for quicker heat output. 326961
Patrick L - 12/21/2017 Patrick L - 12/21/2017Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Easy install on 2016 Kia Sorento- instructional video awesome to guide the installation. 700276
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
The heater fitment is terrible. The molded cable junction rubs on the starter housing since it does not have the 90 degree bend the OEM heater has. Running the cord in a direct line toward the grill gets within about 10 inches instead of reaching the light bezel as it should. Now I have to extend the cord and have a unnecessary junction in the engine compartment. One star is being generous! 601408
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
This heater i installed myself on a 2015 Camry. Excellent product, as good as oem. There is no heatsink compound nor protective cap for the ac plug however. etrailer rep will be happy to find you one if needed. As for the grease, go for electronic shop or computer shop and buy heatsink compound for cpu. Forget the dielectric grease for automotive, wrong purpose. 434859
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Works great. warms engine block nicely with the coolant to at least 95F with 15F outside temps, maybe a little less with subzero cold. I've only used it once plugged in here in November at 15F, just got this. 451274
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Waiting to install this so no review at this time. 649341
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
block heater for 2015 tundra should work out great live in a cold climate any bit of warmth for the engine should be great 236245
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Install was a little tricky given the location for my vehicle 2012 F150. But other than that pretty straight forward. Packaging was good and product seems well put together. Only time will tell if it works well. I'm not in the cold climate yet. It also does come with the 3 prong as advertised. 466588
Erik - 01/11/2019 Erik - 01/11/2019We do not carry a block heater designed to work on a 2019 Ford F-350 6.7 at this time.
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Heather A - 1/15/2019Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Etrailers website description, in addition to speaking with an etrailer representative, provided incorrect installation instructions which state to install cartridge heater dry. Kat's website clearly states to "coat with NSCG silicone grease G-624"! Premature failure of the cartridge heater will occur without the proper heat transfer compound. Please change your descriptions and inform your representatives. Best Regards. 600276
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
I am not mechanic; just mechanically inclined. The part just needs to be inserted in a precast hole on the side on engine block. I added some insulation protection to the line cord with tie wraps. The work space is very crowded...I had to work by feel as much as by sight. And everything works for the winter time. 674143
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Wouldn't work on my 2015 Tacoma pickup. Toyota attached a bracket next to the hole so that it partially overlapped the hole preventing insertion of the heater despite the website indicating the correct part number. Then I am being charged return shipping cost. Not happy. 323405
Laura E - 12/15/2016Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
The device looks OK but it's in a very difficult place to fit (back lower engine) Still waiting for someone with a lift so i can try to install. I struggled to find the location. Still not sure until I try. 466260
Review from a similar Kats Heaters Cartridge Style in Vehicle Heaters
Attempted to install into a 2014 Tacoma. After removing the bracket the blocks the hole for the heater, the cartridge would not go in all the way. I discovered that the thickness of the cartridge where the plug connects to makes contact with the engine below the hole. I had to sand a flat part onto the heater in order for it to slide in flush. The clip barely holds the heater in to the point where I couldn't trust it. I attempted to make the bend further down the clip so it could securely hold the heater in but the clip was fragile and snapped. Attempts to contact Kats/Five Star Manufacturing was a waste of time, they never respond. I resorted to making my own clip with stronger metal and a bend at the proper length and it can be trusted to hold now. Do not purchase Kats/Five Star Manufacturing products with the expectation that they have your back if the product is faulty in some way. Purchase OEM block heaters, yeah they may cost a little more ($18 in this case) but you can expect the product to perform as expected. 467279
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