How to repair your car’s broken block heater plug

Maybe it happened in the car wash or while driving away without unplugging the vehicle; regardless of the mishap, somewhere along the line, your car’s block heater plug snapped off.

Now, outside of a boost, you’re left with no way to save your vehicle from the unforgiving frosty grip of winter.

But Sheldon Puff, a service technician with CAA Saskatchewan, says it’s an easy fix and it’s cheaper than you might think.

“You start by cutting the end of the cord, make it even, to bare the wires,” he explained. “There should be a green, usually, and a white and a black. The green one goes to the (ground post), then the other two just hook onto the other posts.”

From there, Puff said you screw the universal end together, and you’ve got yourself a new block heater plug-in.

“It’s $5, $10 at the most, a little bit of your time and it’s repaired,” he said, adding it can be done with a basic set of wire cutters and a screwdriver.

To make sure you don’t have your wires crossed Puff suggests buying a block heater test plug, that way you know if both your extension cord and fresh end are working.

He also said some new vehicles, like those built after 2015, need the entire block heater cord replaced.

“You do have to take them in and get new cords put in. Some of these newer vehicles, there are so many sensors and stuff that it’s taken away the owner being able to do some of that work,” he said.

Did you somehow lose the plug off your block heater cord? @CAASaskatchewan’s Sheldon Puff teaches us to repair it. All you need is a universal end, wire cutters, a screwdriver and some electrical tape. Start by cutting the cord evenly and threading the new end on… pic.twitter.com/sGdNb1Guw4

— 980 CJME (@CJMENews) January 29, 2019