I don't drive my Z in the winter and it's been cold as hell in Wisconsin this year...damn polar vortexes. My car is in a garage. I've been starting my car and letting it run for 5 to 10 minutes about once a week. The last time I drove it was about 2 weeks ago on a nice warmish sunny day. It drove fine. Today when I went to start my car the auto heater malfunctioned. I could not turn off the heater. None of the controls worked. In addition, there was a high pitch sound coming from the auto control heater. The digital numbers that display the inside/outside temperature were unreadable.

I searched in the forum, but couldn't find a thread with anyone bringing up this issue. If such a thread exists, call me names, call me a newb, but please forward me the link. If no such thread exists, does anybody out there in forum land have any idea what might be going on with my auto heater?

My car is a 1987 300z Turbo with 66K o.g. miles. I bought it from the original owner in the fall of 2012. The only non-original parts on it are a turbo timer and a K&N air filter. It has an auto heater/ac control gauge and an analog dash.

Thank you!

 

can't help but to tell you my 86 electrical system goes haywire when the car freezes. Once she thaws out things are okay. my thought was maybe frozen water in the fusible link box

 

My relatively new Dodge Ram 1500 did the very same thing two nights ago when it was -33 F. Yes, waiting for warmer weather usually resolves these issues. If you are not planning on driving the Z for 2 to 3 months, I suggest you simple disconnect the ground strap on the battery and let it sit rather than start it once a week. You can buy a cheap trickle charger to put on the battery or do like me and put a charger on the battery every 4 to 6 weeks (to mostly keep it from freezing). My car sits longer, so I also dump some Stabil in the tank. Shouldn't be needed for your situation.