Heating on the blink!

Souness

Hi...Heating is broken on my Fiesta (98):eek: ..controls work fine, just no hot air...is this an expensive thing to fix or something small like a blown fuse? Has anyone any experience of heating going in Fords hatcbacks and how to fix?..its getting chilly already and don't fancy winter trips to work with gloves and scarf on:) ..cheers...S

Car Mad

comon problem in seat's i dono i never got mine fixed.(for some reason)

franksm

have a look in the engine bay, there should be two rubber pipes going from the engine into the passenger compartment. Do those pipes get hot ? If not, then you probably have a faulty thermostat (it's stuck open) which is pretty simple and cheap to fix.

If the pipes are hot, then the problem with with the heater box/matrix under the dash. The control levers are connected to it with rods or wires (like bicycle brake-cables) and it could be one has slipped off or has broken. One rod/wire will control the flap that lets hot air out of the heater matrix. If all that is fine, then it's possible that the heater matrix is sludged up - especially if there's a good mileage on the car, and the coolant has never been changed. You can buy stuff from Halfords which will unblock that stuff (hopefully) but you'd need to flush the coolant out and renew it.

KeRbDoG

If all of that the others say seems fine beware!
Any car that I have had where the cylinder head gasket is on its way out can put a huge amount of pressure into the cooling system that the heater in your car is connected to, thus it stops flowing to the small rad inside the car and your heating stops working.
Prob a 1% chance that this is the problem though

franksm

kerbdog wrote:

If all of that the others say seems fine beware!
Any car that I have had where the cylinder head gasket is on its way out can put a huge amount of pressure into the cooling system that the heater in your car is connected to, thus it stops flowing to the small rad inside the car and your heating stops working.
Prob a 1% chance that this is the problem though

nice one - in which case, check for "mayonnaise" under the oil-cap and any other sign of oil and water mixing :-O

fightin irish

It's a heater valve m8. Sits up at the bulkhead under the bonnet. Sell absolute bucket loads of em. They're around €50 ish, Can't recall excatly.
I'd be very surprised if it's not this.

Hope this helps.

Souness

Thanks fellas...happy to report no Hellmans under oil cap...do all garages deal with these things or does it have to be a heating specialist...very green:D !

fightin irish

Every dealer and every garage's mechanics do this stuff all the time. I'ts only for the like of air con and maybe auto elecricians that are specialisied. BTW what was the problem in the end?