Scirocco Register

My heater has suddenly started not getting very hot

The controls still do have an effect, so i'm fairly confident there's no problem at that side, but even after 30 mins of driving with heat on full there's no real hot air coming out, its just sort of warmish. probably about the same temperature as if the slider was 2/3 the way towards hot on a working system

Any idea what may be causing it?

Low coolant level?

Air lock?

how's your coolant temperature? is the needle on the temp gauge sitting low?

My garage have recently replaced the cooland, level appears fine though they may not have bled it. now i think about it, it was around the time it stopped working properly

Dash temp gauge only works intermittently so can't rely on that to tell me anything

I'll try bleeding it and see where that gets me, thanks Danny :)

could be the thermostat on its way out

could be the thermostat sticking slightly open. could also just be that it's 'kin cold out there!

Well, didnt manage to have a go at bleeding this weekend due to having "the plague". Did drive the car to Nottingham on saturday however (around a 2 hour round trip) and the heater is now working a lot better. its still not quite hot enough, but definatly better than it was before

I assume the system cant bleed itself, so would this point towards the thermostat giving up?

if it was me, i'd be tempted to just watch the situation develop for a bit. with overnight temperatures regularly dipping to -15, it could just be that the engine ain't getting up to temp

Nate wrote:with overnight temperatures regularly dipping to -15, it could just be that the engine ain't getting up to temp

I agree. With the current weather, it will take your car a lot lot longer to get to temp, worse if on a short trip.

Would recommend you getting your temp gauge soreted though as an early warning system. Give me a shout if you need any help

Matt

Thanks guys, i've been driving the car every day for a while now, and whatever the problem was, it seems to have dissapeared, everything's back to normal

GT Matt wrote: Would recommend you getting your temp gauge soreted though as an early warning system. Give me a shout if you need any help

I'll hopefully be fitting some VDO gauges and replacing a dodgy dash bulb in the next couple of weeks, so i'll check connections at this point. Are there any known problems with the temp gauge to look out for? it works on probably 25% of the time

Gilb666 wrote: Are there any known problems with the temp gauge to look out for? it works on probably 25% of the time

IIRC the gauge is operated by the black coloured sender on the underside of the plastic housing the top hose is connected to coming off the cylinder head. These can be tempremental or there could be a broken wire/corroded terminal or there's the gauge itself. Not to difficult to diagnose but you just need to methodical.