Anyone else noticed poor footwell heat level?

[veteran]

With the much colder weather upon us now, I've started using the heater system - the manual kind, not a Climatronic type - in my 2017 Polo 1.2 TSI in more earnest. There are effectively three manual controls, each in the guise of a rotary selector knob, governing heat - one that determines delivered air temperature (from cold to max heat), one that fans the air around the system at different rates, and the third in which you can select exactly where you want the heat delivered (windscreen, face vents, footwells, or whatever). But I've noticed for the first time that, for that third control, hardly any air at all is pushed out from the footwells. And that's with all dash vents closed too! Anyone else with a 6C Polo and manual heater noticed this as well?

The amount of air pushed out to the driver's footwell, and presumably to also the other passengers' footspaces, is pathetically small. It's as if the ductings down to the footwells have been deliberately blocked and a mere leakage of air gets through. I've tried a lot of permutations of these rotary controls, but although I can feel some airflow coming out from the foot position of the driver it seems not nearly enough.

I'm beginning to wonder if this has been a deliberate design ploy by VW, in that the designers of the 6C may have deliberately limited the volume of warm air emitted from the footwells simply because, unlike the face/hands vents on the dashboard, there are no mechanical vents in the actual footwells to use. Probably, a bigger volume of heat will ensue once the engine's fully warmed up and the vehicle's been out and about on the roads for a while, and so possibly by that time there'll then be enough heat getting to the footwells. But I'm guessing and it's not been put to the test yet.

It might be, I'm thinking, that this problem exists only on the 6R/6C's with manual heater controls. Anyone care to comment? Oddly, in the Polo Driver's Manual (Nov 2016 edition), pp.108/109, it's stated "Further vents are located in the footwells and in the rear of the vehicle interior", but I've seen no such 'further vents'. Have I been missing a trick here, or what?

[blackertracker]

My Polo 6C has Climate, so I can’t check this for you.
What I will say is mine works well. When in Auto mode, it directs hot air to the footwell vents and cooler air to the face vents, which is great.

We used to have an old 80s Passat GL5 which had manual heating controls which directed hot airflow similarly.

We currently also have a Golf Mk4 with standard manual AC. It blows hot air to all vents. The footwell vents work fine - they do have lower airflow than the other vents but certainly you can feel it. There is smaller footwell trunking to the rear seats, same as the Polo 6C, underneath the front seats.

I’d say something is wrong with your car. The trunking flaps may not be working correctly.

[Shappers01]

I have a 6C with climatronic and my feet are also freezing. I live in Finland so I really suffer with this problem. There is hardly any airflow to the feet.

In the Summer I lifted the whole carpet and insulated the whole floor with sound deadening and then a 10mm layer of closed cell insulation. It has reduced the issue but my feet still get chilly on cold days.

I think I will put a 12v heating pad under the carpet next. In my case it means the footwell is always wet in the winter as the snow from your shoes never fully dries.

Just a weak design I guess.

[RUM4MO]

I think that I have commented before on the poor/not effective air distribution in the 6C Polo and maybe same for 6R Polo and all the similar Ibiza’s and Fabia it seems.

Again my wife’s car has auto AC and I now leave it on Auto but with the chiller disabled most of the time.

[veteran]

Is there any truth in there being any form of outlet control for the footwells, actually in the footwells somewhere? Maybe I'm misinterpreting what the Driver's Manual says in respect of this.

[RUM4MO]

You should find that there are apertures low down in the footwells (from memory), also you should find an aperture in each of the rear footwells.

Edit:- having travelled roughly 75 miles in temperatures ranging from -4C to -6C on Wednesday afternoon, to see the UK start of the Monte Carlo Rally Historique and Classique, and back in temperatures again of similar values yesterday evening, I am probably surprised that I have nothing to complain about, so at least with the auto AC, set to Auto, things seem to be okay - in the past I had tended to try to control the air flow manually and that made life annoying. Today seems to be a few degrees colder, oh bother!

[veteran]

"You should find that there are apertures low down in the footwells ...".

Are they fixed-size openings, though? I'd imagine that those of the rear footwells are, but maybe the front footwell apertures are variable opening?

[RUM4MO]

The part that you see is fixed, but further back the delivery path, there will be a flap motor that will allow some>all the air to the foot areas or the other higher outlet points.

Edit:- with the 6C Polo I've never been aware of being able to direct all the air to the footwells, which is slightly confusing.

[veteran]

With the manual heating system, the third rotary switch has, among it, two separate settings (exclusive-OR, as it were) - one where air is directed solely to the footwells, and one where air is directed to both the footwells and the windscreen. A good idea in principle, it seems to me, as a bit of warming of the windscreen whilst at the same time dishing out some warm air feetward would be exactly what you'd want on a freezing cold morning, at least till the inside of the car and the occupants had got thoroughly warmed up.

[RUM4MO]

I probably wrote that wrongly, what I meant to write was that I have never managed to direct all the air to the foot vents - in as much as there has never been too much hot air being discharged into the foot well, though I reckoned that I should have been able to achieve that!