Heater Issues

[w00dhead]

Hi, can anybody help with this....

My heater appears to be playing up - The fan is working (air is being blown out) but it only blows out warm air when I'm actually moving; if I'm sat in traffic it stops blowing warm air and starts blowing out cold (ambient temp) air. If I then start moving again, hey presto, warm air

I've only had the car since June and haven't realy used the heater until the last few weeks. Its sounds very odd to me...

Any ideas...?

[blahpony]

You have a bubble in your coolant. Look here for more information. Steps 7-9 should fix you up.

[WillsSayers]

You might even just want to check your coolant level - low coolant means you'll only feel the heat when you're moving/booting it!

[w00dhead]

Thanks to both of you for your replies... Greatly appreciated

[Tem]

The air does cool down at idle, especially noticeable in colder weather/hotter blow. It's probably not exactly ambient air, but closer to that than hot?

I doubt you have air, if it does that all the time at idle and then starts to work again the second you raise the revs/start to drive. It's just a feature caused by the water pump speed at idle and the long coolant lines.

[w00dhead]

I actually picked up the top original posts this morning on my iPhone while sat in the car waiting (with no heating) for the temp to cool down so I could then put some more coolant in. It was empty...

As soon I'd put the coolant in the heater started to work. It has however since disaperared so clearly something is not right. I manger to get it round to the garage who will have the pleasure of fixing this and a few other bits that have cropped up in the last few weeks (oxygen sensor, horn not working, break pads, sticky caliper)

They joys of motoring....!!!!

[onion86]

Hi w00dhead, I know you have an 03 plate so might not be this (yet) but check out this thread here.

A few members have had this, mainly with older cars though. I've got the start of it and my coolant lasts about 3 weeks (edit down depending on how much I drive it) before it's completely empty, I decided that it's currently cheaper for me to top it up every so often than change the rad.

Might help out the garage with checking for it too.

[w00dhead]

Great. Thanks. This does sound like a possible as although I've an 03 it has done 82k and will be 7yrs old in May. One of the comments in that other thread describes exactly the prob I've had (no heater and fluctuating temp)

I've had the car approx. 6 mths now and took a bit of a flyer on it (impulse buy) and it's been great until the last few days. I had it serviced by Mr.T and it came back with a list of green ticks on the inspection sheet, since then however....

Thanks again...