The heater on my 98 escort doesn't seem to be blowing very hot air, it's warm but nowhere near as hot as i seem to remember it last winter. It also seems to be taking a lot longer to warm up and if you turn the heat dial down even just marginally the air from the blower becomes chilly.
What's the likely to be the problem or easiest thing to check?
Can't be doing with ahving no heating now that it's just come cold, stting off to work at 5am when it's about -20 in the car but isn't much fun.
Kris
First question: has your engine thermostat failed in the open position? If so, you're likely to be suffering from poor fuel consumption as well.
John
I considered this but if it had failed then I was under the impression there would be no hot air coming from the blower at all. It's an easy enough thing the check and cheap to replace and i plan on flushing out the whole cooling system this weekend anyway but would like a few likely ideas of what specifically to look at.
Kris
Sounds like you have the same problem as I do with my Fiesta. Think I will do the same as you and flush the coolant system out and check that troublesome thermostat.
Good luck.
Ben
Yup, just want to get it sorted now before it gets really cold. I used to have a citroen AX GT and the heating on that died totally mid octoberish several years ago. I spent the entire winter driving around with no heating and ice on the inside of the windows - it wasn't pleasant.
The car was scrapped the following march :)
Ah, the famous blocking heater matrix on the AX.
I doubt a jammed-in-the-open-position t'stat would result in *totally* cold air...I would have expected warm...
Your heater matrix is blocked with bits of corrosion from inside the engine. This is fairly common on the escrot and sierra. It gets worse if anyone has used a product such as Radweld. It glues the bits in to a solid lump. This restricts the flow of hot water through the matrix meaning loss of heat. Take it to a ford dealer and they will change the thermostat and give you the car back saying they couldn't fix it. The feed to the matrix has nothing to do with the thermostat - it's a mistake people often make. Get a new matrix, supplied and fitted in a local garage it should cost around £100. You can look under the bonnet and take the two hoses off that go into the car. Put a hose on one of them and blast it with cold water, then try the other way for a temporary fix.
Where does the gauge sit? Should be pretty much bang on mid position and not drop when driving at speed.
Ford thermostats are notorious for going soft and opening prematurely after a yr or two, so are Vx's
Tim. .
"Tim (remove obvious)" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com...
The point here is that for the sake of a few quid I'd change the thermostat as it's likely the cause of the problem. Even a constantly running fan on the rad wouldn't cause cold air in the car if the thermostat was doing its job. Put a new one in and if still cold then suspect a blocked heater matrix but I'll put money on the thermostat.
Im having exactly the same problem with my escort. Might as well try changing the thermostat sice they dont cost much more then £3 each. Thats a small price to pay for a heater in the winter. If it does turn out to be the heater matrix looks like im gonna freeze.
if you leave the car ticking over for a bout 5 minutes, without moving the car, do the heater warm up more than normal,? if so then change the thermostat.
no it doesn't warm up at all. even when the temp of the car gets high it still blows out freezing cold air.
Ahh well, then if the engine is upto operating temp (moving or allowed to stand still) yet the heater is still cold, then either the matrix is blocked or (on an escrort) the blending door is not moving.
On a Fiesta / Ka etc, they use water control rather than air which is a different system.
Tim.
There would be when running around town and slightly warm air if it's=20 done a bit of town running before doing 60.
--=20 Conor
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Don't like the sound of water-control! I recall seeing negative comments a few times on this newsgroup regarding them (in KAs).
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