For the past couple of months my heater has been crap! It would take about 20 minutes to start feeling even luke warm air blowing out. I figured I could just flush it and let that be it. My car could use a whole coolant flush anyway, so I had a local shop do that for me, thinking it would also flush out the heater core.

It didn't really help out the heater core at all, and a couple of days later the heat won't even heat up at all, no matter how long i let it.

If i just drive for a while and don't use any heat, and then turn it on, it will be luke warm again for about a minute, and then get cold again.

Is my heater core dead? The floor isn't wet, so i know it's not clogged or anything. Is there a write up that shows how to replace it? where can I get one cheap?

 

ttt

 

Well first off id check the coolant level. If thats fine see if your car take a long time to heat up. if it does your thermostat might be stuck open. coolant shouldnt pass through the radiator till the thermostat is opened. if its stuck open constantly then your coolant isnt actually heating up enough to create heat for the pass compartment. this also hurts your gas milage cause the computer doesnt go into closed loop and runs rich. To check this start the car cold and feel the upper radiator hose. If you feel pressure when the engines cold or can feel liquid passing through it, your therm is stuck open. If thats not the problem see if you can find the coolant line running into the heater core. while the engines COLD and running pull the line off the heater core and see if coolant flows out. if it does you have good flow. Only hold it out for a split second so you dont dump a ton of coolant on the ground. If thats not it id be lookin at a new heater core. I hope this helps. see-ya
-Paul

 

The problems that you are having with your heat is the same problems I use to have. The problem is that you need to flush the heater core itself. When your local shop flushes the coolant system they just drain your fluid and put in new, most of the time. This will not get rid of the crap that clogs up your heater core. To do the fulsh simple disconnect the hoses that run to your water pump and hook a water hose up to the return heater line. That is the one on top of the pump. The one on the bottom is the inlet line. Anyways once you hook up the hose just turn the water on and watch all the crap poor out. Leave the hose on till the water turns clear and then you have flushed your heater core. Hook all the heater hoses back up and bleed out all the air. Plus just to let you know that when a heater core is clogged it just doesn't allow the collant to flow through. If you see water on your floor board then you have a leaky heater core not a cloged one.

 

i was thinking that I need to flush the core too, but wouldn't a clogged heater core only allow it to get warm after a while? if it's not running and i turn it on, it is warm once it's on, then goes to cold....

 

what exactly gets clogged? the heater core or the hoses running to it?

 

You can try a flush but if the shop did a full system flush it went through the heater core too. The chanels inside the heater core are extremely thin and get clogged easy. If he flush doesnt work id be looking at something mechanical like what I mentioned above. I read you already had a flush done so I went on to other possiblities.

 

Those shops that you take it to, to get "professionally" flushed, don't always know what they are doing. Make sure that they flushed it with the heater on and crankin in order to flow through it. Since you are not sure of it then, I would flush it manually by disconnecting the two hoses and running water backwards forwards and sideways if you can, lol. That should help a lot. Force the water through there in both directions and you should unclog it.

 

Definately try flushing the heater core itself. You must pull the hoses off that go to the core, and attach a garden hose on one side, and a drain hose on the other. Put the drain hose in a bucket so you can moitor the crap that comes out. Flush it one way till the water runs clear, then backflush it by reversing the hoses. Do this a few times till the water runs freely and comes out clean. If this doesnt help, at least youve eliminated the heater core as a possible problem. Incidentally, I had the same problem, but i thought it was related to DEXCOOL...not the "green stuff" coolant.

 

oh ok, so you don't actually run water through the hoses, you run water throught the core using the two holes on the firewall?

How much coolant should I expect to lose pulling those two hoses off?

 

Yes, you want to flush only the heater core...the two small hoses going to the firewall on the passenger side...just pull them off to expose the heater core pipes(they are slightly different sizes). You may want to go to autozone and buy some length of the proper size hoses to slip right on there...makes it easier. Not too much coolant will be lost...just be sure the car is cool when you do this...and put some rags under the hoses because a little will run out. And after the core is flushed, you should add some coolant to the overflow tank, to compensate for what was lost.

 

awesome...i just gotta see if I can get those hoses off. the clamps are looking a little rusty

 

The reason that I suggested flushing it through the hoses is becasuse my lines also were clogged. Plus it is easier to work near the front of the engine compared to up against the firewall. Either way the heater core is your problem and all you need to do is backflush it. Good Luck.

 

The fallback to doing it that way is that you lose A LOT more coolant disconnecting the lines from the WP rather than the firewall.

 

probably a high risk of damaging the opti too....I just changed that two months ago...don't want to do it again.

I already had a system flush, so the lines are probably clear...it just got all pushed into the heater core, hopefull i'll give it a shot today