Love my new GMC Terrain (2012) that I just bought this year, in Saskatchewan, in the summertime -- but don't as much love the fact that I misremembered where the block heater cord/plug resides, went to plug it in after work on the night it's suddenly supposed to be -30 (with a "feels like" -40 factor), and Dang.  Wasn't where I thought it was.

Realizing this just before the haze of insanity set in (you know the one, if you've been outside for more than 30 seconds on a moonless SK winter's night), I abandoned ship to grab the manual & run inside to the warm glow of Google, just in case the manual read more like a Driver's Ed booklet than an automotive manual (which it does?) (I'm a mechanic's daughter, so maybe I'm high maintenance...but really. You'd think there'd be at least some mention of this item's whereabouts if they're selling these models to Canadians? Or a more detailed diagram of the under-the-hood realm?  Oh well, I think they were written in California.)

Google did little more than link me to a downed forum & another forum with a vague "good luck" indication that it might be behind a headlight.  So, flashlight in hand and moonboots on foot, I wandered back out into the arctic death to resume my quest... plunged my hands around in the frozen carcass of the beast, feeling all the obvious spots (I'm used to older vehicles) to no avail... and just when I was about to give up and re-enact Charlize Theron's final scene in "The Road" -- what to my wondering eyes should appear... but a tiny black coily suspect, riiiight atop the passenger's side headlight (not behind it at all) that legit looked like it was not to be tampered with/yanked out of place & appeared as though it was plugged into something else... WAIT -- a PLUG??   The arctic-induced insanity dissolved any regard for what it was plugged into, and I excavated it instantly.  SUCCESS!

So there you have it.  I know.  Why the cuss did I take 3 paragraphs to get to the point?  Figured if you're reading this, you needed a few minutes to thaw your thighs out before you went back out there, as, frozen from the hips down like Audrey in Christmas Vacation's opening sequence, I empathetically sit to pass this torch to the next cold-crazed Canadian -- I would post a photo, but really. I'm not going back out there.  It's SO. COLD.

So good luck to you, just pop the hood, yank out the little black coil-covered cord atop the passenger's side headlight, jam things hastily together and run the crap back inside before you die!


For further inter-seasonal maintenance, consider spray painting this cord with glow-in-the-dark or fluorescent gunk, or covering in nifty dinosaur stickers, because I'm sure your wife-in-a-skirt / daughter-who-brought-the-car-home-late / son-who-opted-out-of-shop-class / self-who-forgot-this-by-November-2014 will appreciate the foresight.