Chinese Diesel heaters

[Squiffy]

A couple of weeks ago I foolishly said I'd fit one of these chinese diesel heaters into my sister in laws new to her Vito van, I looked on ebay and found a complete kit for the Princely sum of £79 having never fitted one or seen one come to that I had some trepidation in ordering it. It arrived two days later and when I looked inside the very well packed box I was pleasantly surprised at the apparent quality of the product and associated parts. The fitting of the heater unit was strictly straight forward and the siting of the diesel tank in my case was straight forward, fitting it up electrically was dead easy, so too was the lovely lcd control unit, the instructions were a bit chinesey and not easy to follow for the initial set up, but if you have been through the early 90s computer setting up of ancillaries then it's not too difficult, however the remote control that comes with it is a real bonus and all that's required is turning the system on or off from the remote, although you can program the controller to come on and off at set temps and times fairly easily. The one drawback that I would say is the start up and shutdown time is quite extended but I suppose because it runs on diesel it has to heat up or cool down enough to be rendered safe.
My sister in law is over the moon with it and I was pleased that the fitting only took me about 4hrs in total. I have to say that I'm really impressed with this unit, the heat produced from this 2kw unit is exceptionally hot to the point that it has to be used on its lowest setting in a van the size of a Mercedes Vito, I would suggest that it should be run at full blast every so often to clean out the injector knozzle and ignition chamber.
When all is said and done for £79 this knocks spots of an Eberspacher at four to five times the price, if it goes wrong just buy another one . Phil

P.s. Just looked up the equivalent price for an Eberspacher kit let's now say positively that Eberspacher price is ten times the price.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Do you have a link to the one you got Phil?

 

[Squiffy]

Here is the one that I ought Pudsey but the link is now not available? So had to take a screen shot of the original order, the one I had now seems to have increased in price to £98.89. I've noticed a similar situation on Amazon just lately where you purchase something quite cheap and when you go to repurchase it's either unavailable and don't know when it will be back in stock or the price has increased to almost double .
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-2KW-...=p2349624.m2548.l6249&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

P.s. The price shown of £66 was plus vat.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Thanks Phil

 

[Nabsim]

I don’t know if it’s luck of the draw or in some cases bodged fitting but there does seem to be a lot more problems with the Chinese diesel heaters. I know quite a few folks in self build vans who have gone right off them now and fitted burners instead. Hope your one stays trouble free

 

[Squiffy]

I don’t know if it’s luck of the draw or in some cases bodged fitting but there does seem to be a lot more problems with the Chinese diesel heaters. I know quite a few folks in self build vans who have gone right off them now and fitted burners instead. Hope your one stays trouble free

I hope so too Nabsim, however most of the problems reported are units not firing up and the doom sayers who prophesise death by freezing if you use the cheap Chinese equivalent to the European. But let's face it when did we last get temperatures below -40 in the UK. Plus the fact that for £78 my sister in law now can heat her van on the 10-15 times that it might be cold enough to use it over a yearly period, if it breaks down in the first 10 years and a new one is fitted every year then yes fitting an Ebespacher at £800 would have been a better bet, but that still would not preclude an Eberspacher from going west either in that ten years, so in her case I think cheaper is better . Phil

 

[xsilvergs]

I have wondered about the Lavaner diesel heater which are supposed to be better than the regular Chinese diesel heater.

These seem to me a little difficult to get hold of in the UK, there is a company that fits them though.

If the Ebespacher seems over priced, how do the Planar heaters compare, value for money wise. https://planarheaters.co.uk/store

 

[Craig He]

Hi Xsilvergs, we are completely different from other CDHs, we got quality parts inside the packages, no need to replace them when you open the box. in addition, ECU protected by Housing, Waterproof connectors, Kyocera Glow Plug, etc. we got tons of Reviews on the FB Pages. LOL. I am new member here, just want to help people. LOL

 

[xsilvergs]

Hi Xsilvergs, we are completely different from other CDHs, we got quality parts inside the packages, no need to replace them when you open the box. in addition, ECU protected by Housing, Waterproof connectors, Kyocera Glow Plug, etc. we got tons of Reviews on the FB Pages. LOL. I am new member here, just want to help people. LOL

Thanks for info Craig, unfortunately (or fortunately) not a FB user.

I'll do some measuring to see how a 2kW would fit.

Perhaps @Philip Tomlinson can negotiate a discount for us .

 

[SquirrellCook]

FB isn’t real, just for entertainment.

 

[Craig He]

I am happy to do the negotiation, just for the reference. https://www.facebook.com/Lavaner-Pro-Diesel-Heater-106624824474845

 

[xsilvergs]

I am happy to do the negotiation, just for the reference. https://www.facebook.com/Lavaner-Pro-Diesel-Heater-106624824474845

Thanks for info, but I'm not willing to purchase through Aliexpress or similar.

 

[Craig He]

Thanks for info, but I'm not willing to purchase through Aliexpress or similar.

Thanks for your feedback, sorry to tell you that AliExpress is the only way for Lavaner to market the products so far, but we have been trying to launch the online store in EBay and Amazon, hope we could have a online store in 2022.

 

[Squiffy]

Thanks for your feedback, sorry to tell you that AliExpress is the only way for Lavaner to market the products so far, but we have been trying to launch the online store in EBay and Amazon, hope we could have a online store in 2022.

Nothing to do with Lavaner other than they use Ali Express, last year I decided to go for one of these Chinese Android GPS map/radios and went for the Ducato direct fit replacement, the cheapest I could find was on Ali Express can not remember the company now but I ordered one from them and put my address post code and country ( Wales) I got a response from the company to say that it was shipped, this being about two days after ordering, I had luckily paid by PayPal. 5 or 6 days later a msg came through from them requesting another £15 extra as my address was not easily posted to. ( Why as I'm in Barry 9 miles from the major city of Cardiff and never had problems having stuff from China). Anyway I emailed back that they had taken my money both for the radio and the postage (£35 ) and I saw No reason that it should now cost a further £15. The responses from them were in perfect written English so whoever was responding knew English grammar very well, but the excuses came thick and fast as to why it will cost more, They finally said it was posted and could not be stopped so I had to pay the extra, eventually I sent all correspondence to PayPal dispute centre and they returned my total costs about £385 I think, and the Radio never did arrive so this " It's been posted and can't be stopped" was obviously bol***ks. So in all I would never trust Ali Express again I'm afraid. Phil

By the by I eventually bought one from Icebox Autos in Liverpool, it was the latest version too Android 10 instead of the Android 8 that the other idiots were selling. I can not give higher praise to Icebox Autos they were excellent with their after sales help on installation and their price for it was only about £50 more than Ali Express plus a rear view camera and plug in widget to tell you all your engine parameters in the ecu test socket ( OBD)

 

[Craig He]

Hi Squiffy. YES, there are cheats on AliExpress. sometimes you will got 5KW heater after you placed the order for 2KW, they will give you 10 or 15 USD when you said you got a wrong heater. what I would like to say is that they are re-sellers, they are not responsible for their products, in addition, when you got any technical issues, they will not respond as they do not know how to do that. BUT, Lavaner is a manufacturer, we deal with all of the technical issues, furthermore, we also got a dealer in UK who is able to provide the warranty service to all of the customers when needed. please refer to this page, in which you could fine lots of Youtube Reviews made by respectful gentleman, thanks for your time. https://www.lavaner.com/col.jsp?id=102

 

[Squiffy]

Hi Squiffy. YES, there are cheats on AliExpress. sometimes you will got 5KW heater after you placed the order for 2KW, they will give you 10 or 15 USD when you said you got a wrong heater. what I would like to say is that they are re-sellers, they are not responsible for their products, in addition, when you got any technical issues, they will not respond as they do not know how to do that. BUT, Lavaner is a manufacturer, we deal with all of the technical issues, furthermore, we also got a dealer in UK who is able to provide the warranty service to all of the customers when needed. please refer to this page, in which you could fine lots of Youtube Reviews made by respectful gentleman, thanks for your time. https://www.lavaner.com/col.jsp?id=102

Yes I did say that I couldn't say about Lavaner, but unfortunately the experience I had has put me off Ali Express for the foreseeable future, it must be really upsetting for genuine traders using Ali Express but the few are spoiling it for the many and there does not seem to be a controlling factor in Ali Express to which you can send a dispute to, at least I could not find a moderator when I was having this problem, I'm not sure but I believe that PayPal are now not allowing payment to Ali Express but then I may be mis informed. Phil

 

[Craig He]

sorry for your suffering, completely understood. I hate them too. THEY ARE CHEATS.

 

[Squiffy]

I found this very interesting.

Came across this by accident, nothing to do with Craig's links I was looking at welding aluminium utube vids and this was one of the follow on links. Phil

 

[Craig He]

I found this very interesting.

Came across this by accident, nothing to do with Craig's links I was looking at welding aluminium utube vids and this was one of the follow on links. Phil

Ha, this is our water heater

 

[Squiffy]

Ha, this is our water heater

Yes I realised that Craige, and it is something that I would be interested in in the future . Phil