Heater core problem- '92 Golf

Is there no recall on these heatercores from V.W.?? It happened to me with

Good chance that the core itself is air locked, this is probably more likely then the core being plugged. When I replaced mine a few years ago (90 golf) I filled the core with fluid before I hooked up the final hose, and then filled the system after.

With the car cold, try taking squeezing the flexable hoses, it might be able to move the fluid into the core, if its working you will see the level drop at the coolent bottle. The other choice is a bit more work, drain your coolent again and try filling the core first.

good luck.

Well, it looks like the air lock explanation was correct. After the car sat overnight, the coolant level in the reservoir had dropped a bit, and when I took it for a spin around the block there was enough heat to cook an egg. I guess the coolant was just slowly trickling into the core overnight.

The archives for this group imply that heater core defects were epidemic on A2s, and VW seems to have had many recalls for this problem. When I asked the local VW dealer if I could get a free heater core, they said they would have to install it themselves. Since I didn't particularly want their mechanics poking around in my car looking for other things to fix to cover their costs, I decided to do it myself. The job was fiddly and time consuming, but not particularly difficult.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Garry

snipped-for-privacy@doe.carlet> I just finished installing a brand new VW heater core on my '92 Golf.

Don't knock the VW dealership too hard, some of them are pretty decent. I took my 90 golf into Bank Street VW here in Ottawa 2 years ago for an emmissions dianostic and they informed me there was an outstanding recall on my heat deflector on the exhaust (warm air intake sheild) and that they would like to take care of it while it was in for the diagnostic. They replaced the head gasket, valve cover gasket head bolts and put in new valve cover posts in the process, no charge. They said there was nothing wrong with them if they had been left alone, and because they to remove them (or unscrew them) to do the job, they were cover under the recall. They provided me with a list of other things they noticed needed fixing in the engine area without actually fixing them. The guy said they were easy to fix if you work on the car yourself and because of they age of the car, wanted to leave them for me to decide if I wanted to fix them myself or have them do it.

I have been to other dealers where the try to stiff you, but Bank Street and Bytek on St. Laurent (Ottawa) both seem very helpful and straight.