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What happened to the Beetle's heater

On a late model Beetle last night I was driving down the freeway and it was cold outside. For a good half hour the heater stopped working. No air would pass through the vents at all no mater how many times I moved the heater control knob up and down. The hot air would not go. It just stopped all of a sudden when I had the heat on half way. Then by the end of the road trip the heater returned back to normal. What happened? The heater is purely mechanical. All it is, is a lever that opens up a little door inside the heat exchange tubes. It's got a cable that runs to it. The cable wouldn't just break and fix itself in 1/2 hour would it? So what would prevent the air from passing through?

Reply to
eastwardbound2003
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1) Blocked air inlet to fan. Often, the tarboard will fall into the inlet. 2) Mouse nests.

3) Flaps disconnected or "flapping" around.

4) Fan belt slipping.

??

Speedy Jim

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Reply to
Speedy Jim

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You said 'late model'. By that do you mean a 1968 thru 1979 VW Beetle or one of the new Beetle's with a water cooled Golf type of engine?

Anyway, this might be of some help:

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Reply to
Jim347a

A point to keep in mind is that the stock VW heater is a single-pass, flow-THROUGH design. That is, there must be some OUTLET from the cabin before heated air will flow INTO the cabin.

On early bugs you had to crack a window. On later models they added a vet to the rear-side windows. On the Transporter there was usually enough leakage around the controls to give a pretty good flow although this was compromised if the lower body panel was removed. Nowadays most of us simply leave one of the wind-wings cracked.

But if your vehicle has a vent you might want to check that it isn't being blocked by... whatever.

-Bob Hoover

Reply to
Bob Hoover

hmmm a Beetle so tightly sealed that more air can not enter or more air pressure can't be created! Been a while since I had seen one of those! lol

Excellent point since it makes very good sense! ;-)

Reply to
dave AKA vwdoc1

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