95 Buick Riviera - Coolant Leaking Into Cabin

Heater core blew up.

mileage may be due to running in low coolant 'limp home" mode where it only feeds fuel to every other cylinder on every other revolution, back and forth, to allow for air cooling in lieu of water cooling...serious power loss and max speed of about 60 mph in this condition...

Duh - Heater Core!

Heater core? Thanks! Now bear with me cause I'm a girl, but what is the heater core?

I'm asking because it's my bf's car ,but he's kind of a stubborn DIYer with no auto background (recently replaced the brake discs & water pump himself). Is the heater core a goner and needs replacing or can it be fixed? And is this a DIY kind of job or should we call in a professional? Thanks guys!

jeffcoslacker wrote:

View this thread:

here's a pic and quick description.

The heater core can be a diy job, it doesn't require a hoist or special tools**, just a large collection of swear words as it's usually buried under the dash. My joke is the "core" in heater core is that's the core piece of your car, they assemble the rest of the car around it.

**HOWEVER... some cars require disconnecting the A/C before removing the heater core, which is NOT something most people can do at home.

Ray

Heater core is inside the dashboard. It's basically a small radiator, hot coolant flows through it and warms the air blow though it by the blower to give you heat in the car when you need it...coolant is always circulating in it, and when the core corrodes and ruptures or a hose comes off, it blows it out on the floor inside. (actually there is a drain in that box, but a fast leak will overwhelm it)

They are generall a pain in the butt to replace...some cars worse than others, not sure about yours.

Have him take a look at this....

They didn't have a repair guide for the SC Riviera, but the LeSabre should be close...scroll down for your year...

Thanks Ray and Thanks Jeff, you guys are great! Now I know what we're up against, I can do some research and weigh our options (DIY vs. professional). Can't wait to get this fixed so I can stop shampooing the carpets!

: )

jeffcoslacker wrote:

View this thread:

What I've done in the past... Call a garage and ask how much to replace the core. (see if you can find out how many hours involved.) then call a parts place like autozone and price out just the core.

Then I do Price to have a pro do it - price for parts = labour cost (roughly.)

Some cars are "easy" to do the core on, some cars require dismantling half of the dashboard.

The reason for the "how many hours" gives you an idea of how complicated it is... actually hooking up the core takes about 5 minutes. The other three hours is disassembly/reassembly.

Yup - Already found the part on NAPAonline, $96.92. Now I'm waiting for a call back from a garage on how much to install (and how long). I think we can handle the dash but I'm not too crazy about dealing with the A/C.

First place I called just called back with a quote: $500, about 5 hours to pull the dash, etc. Guess I better start reading those instructions!...

Got any recommendati> Uzume wrote:

Even though Haynes manuals aren't very good, swing by an autozone or library... they'll probably tell you if you need to disconnect the AC or not to change the heater core.