Worst insulated car ever?

Faults and Technical chat for the CUPRA Born
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Nacaduct
Posts: 80
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:32 pm

Post by Nacaduct »

So it has been pretty cold here in Sweden. Down to -13° in the early mornings and some -9° in the afternoons.
I have always felt a weird draft from the driver side window/door, even when it was around 7° or so, but boy did this car take it to a new level when the temps fell…

First of all:
I felt the floor heating didn’t work that well, felt like it was blowing COOL air. Looked under the seat and there’s a f-in hole where the electricity to the seat is connected to the floor. If you lift up the very thin mat around the hole, you encounter what I suppose is the frame. That frame, when having been outside in -10° for several hours, is icy cold and that cold gets back under your seat.
The solution to this is to either use “iClimate” to warm your feet, or alternatively, make sure ECO is off and heat up the whole car. All of this clearly increases energy usage.

Secondly:
When wondering why the car felt so damn cold, I put my hand back behind the seat, and feel draft both from the door insulation where it closes, but worst of all, flowing cold air from where there should be speakers (but there are none because VW skimped out on them). Checked inside and there seems to be this really thin little foam insulation closest to the outer part of the door.

The hard plastic on the inside of the doors also doesn’t seem to help with warmth.

Finally:
I wonder if the windows are lightweight kinda glass… how can so much cold get in?

I used to own a Seat Ibiza, and granted it got cold in the winter, but the Born takes it to a new level. It feels like they have compromised on many things. I also wonder how they can produce such a shittily insluated car, when they must know energy consumptuon is a problem in cold weather anyway? One would think they would inslulate an EV better to save energy? Did they not winter test this car? Were the test drivers content?

I get the feeling that this car has been compromised on everywhere (crappy backup camera, software/app integration, insluation…) perhaps due to the whole chip/cable harnesses/who-knows-what-else.

Ok, rant over…
Cupra Born since ‘22

monkeyhanger
Posts: 567
Joined: Tue May 31, 2022 8:12 pm

Post by monkeyhanger »

Draughts on the move, fair enough, the door seals might be a bit iffy on the fit, or less supple in the cold for the best seal (not an issue i've ever had on our 2), but if you stick a warm car in -10C cold for 10 hours, it's going to be cold when you come back to it unless it's been bathed in sunlight to give a greenhouse effect on the interior - a car doesn't hold heat in like a Thermos flask, no matter how soft the door card plastics or how thick the windows are.
2022 V2 E-Boost L-Tech Pack - Aurora Blue
2023 Audi S3 - to avoid rapid charging on long journeys.

Octopus referral: https://share.octopus.energy/lush-fawn-565
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