Need new heater core - whats the damage likely to be?

Supercell · 30-04-2009 3:01pm #1

My Skoda Fabia hatchback (05) has been steaming up whenever the heater is on which has been driving me crazy, last garage said they couldn't find anything wrong with it (they just left the heater on full power for an hour - inside of the car must have been like an oven so no steam....).
Also the coolant needs to be topped up every month or so.
So I took it to another garage and they said my heater core needs replacing after having a look at it. They don't have any in stock so are going to order one up for me and call me when its available.

So what's the damage likely to be to get it fitted?, looking online it seems like its a fairly big job to replace one of these so labour is probably going to be a large part of it.
I really cannot afford a huge bill right now , how much should i prepare for roughly do you think?

crosstownk · 30-04-2009 7:50pm

Whatever the price of the part is plus a minimum of 5 hours labour. Unless I'm mistaken, most of the dash will have to come out.

franksm · 02-05-2009 3:50pm

Yeah, dash out (one of the most horriblistist car jobs to do) unless someone can poke their head under the dash and see that it's something simple like a loose hose. I think the hose joints will be in the engine bay though...

colm_mcm · 02-05-2009 3:57pm

on a tiny number of cars you can access the matrix through the glovebox. for everyone else, it's a stripping of the dash

Supercell · 02-05-2009 5:48pm

Thanks, that sounds like I'm not getting much change out of €1000, I really hate having debt on my credit card when i could be laid off any time

Row · 02-05-2009 10:55pm

I replaced mine on my Peugeot 406 a few months ago...:rolleyes:
it took a few hours ..I removed the glovebox and removed as many screws as i could see and had to break some of the plastic behind the glovebox.
superglue was required for the fitting of the new one...:eek:
don't forget to clamp the flow/return hoses feeding the heater matrix the
engine bay side of the bulk head otherwise you will lose all your coolent
into your footwell.....:eek:
i used a G-clamp and two pieces of 2x1 to clamp the hoses.
bought the heater matrix on e-bay (valeo) for 70 euro delivered....:)
130 in Peugeot....:rolleyes:

Need new heater core - whats the damage likely to be?

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