hiyo

I've got no heat outa the vents. checked the pipes to the heater core, they are nice and hot, checked the blend door or actuator behind the stereo, seems to work fine. I can change to air to defrost, face, and feet fine. what should I check next?

 

So, it's blowing air out of the vents, just not heat? Make sure you don't have any air in your cooling system. When's the last time you did a coolant flush and flushed out your heater core? One often neglected task on many cars is the maintenance of the cooling system. In general, it's recommended that you flush and clean out your cooling system once every 36 months, or approximately every three years. Your heater core could be clogged or have an issue. Check out this NAM thread here. Look at post #20 for symptoms and what they did before resulting in needing a new heater core. Post #18 and #24 will give you good suggestions to check over as well.

If you find it may be the heater core that needs to be replaced we have them HERE with the install kit below. MINI coolant HERE. Let me know if you have any questions and let me know what you find out.

 

Is this in a Cooper or Supercharged car? There is a bleed valve before the heater core on the Cooper I have seen plug up and cause coolant flow issues. On every other issue I've seen with low heat in the cabin it was due to a clogged heater core.

You can try to do a heater core flush, but the passages are so narrow that they get gootnclogged. I've flushed the same heater core twice in the same year, it worked for awhile but the core is the smallest passage in the whole cooling system so it acts much like a filter.

It's not too long of a job to tackle, there is some acrobatics required to get to the core, some plastic sheeting is recommended along with a drip pan to keep as much coolant out of the car as possible.

We have them on the shelf with required install kit, MINI Gen 1 Heater Core

Nick
Detroit Tuned

 

Air in the system or a coolant leak , have you changed anything recently ?

 

Supercharged. The heater core is hot to the touch, I checked the actuator behind the radio, the one in the passenger footwell, and bleed the air multiple times. I have some heat now, but not enough for the cold outside. Guess I'm gonna have to get another heater core.

It may have been when I changed the o rings for the oil cooler and the gunk in the lines may have messed it up...
If I use the vacuum method will it get the gunk out?

 

If your coolant system has been neglected the vacuum method will be a good idea as it helps push distilled water through system. Lots of info and helpful steps in this NAM thread here using that method.

 

You can run water through it in the reverse way of the flow to try to dislodges some gunk and build up. Sometimes it works and sometimes if you removes a little bit and you end up replacing anyway , its worth a shot.


Also make sure the cabin filter is not clogged under the passenger foot well.

 

alright, so I did the vacuum method, removed the heater core and rinsed that out, refilled the coolant and no heat again.

the other thing I noticed is refilling the coolant sucks. theres no clear indication when its full or correct. cap on, cap off, bleed screw, other bleed screw , nothing seems to work the way I've read or envisioned. this time the coolant reservoir boiled over, the bleed screw had tons of steam, it just doesn't seem right or done correctly. I have no definitive frame of reference!!

frustrating as this all seems plenty of people have done it, ive done it like six time this year....go to the track, replace coolant, replace water pump, super charger fluid, replace coolant, replace oil cooler o rings, replace coolant. hell when I first bought the car (2 yrs ago) I had no heat and I replaced the thermostat, replaced coolant, that didn't work, then replaced the heater core, replaced coolant, that worked. none seemed like it was done correctly....geesh ....

I'm at whits end with this car. whits end.

I guess now ill have to order another thermostat and heater core and replace coolant again.

its January/febuary in Oregon. this sucks!

 

Have you used our coolant change DIY HERE to help with the refill and bleed process? Are you having additional issues that leads you to replacing the thermostat again as well?

 

What procedure did you follow, did you fill through the expansion tank , start the car and open the bleeder screw , turn the heater on high? It takes a couple bleeds to burp out all the air, I did mine 3 short warm to cold cycles.

 

reviewed the DIY before, yes. thought since I was replacing the heater core id replace the thermostat also, JIC


spent 2 hrs trying to bleed. after the steam poured out of the blled screw, and then when I turned the car off the reservoir tank boiled over, I called it a day and started clean up.

 

Yea, I would keep trying to feed coolant into the system ( expansion tank ) until you see it bubble of bleed , you have the unscrew the bleeder screw almost to the very end, hold it on there so it will not pop off, then fill the expansion tank. It should not really boil over when you shut the car off. I think something is not hooked right in the hoses. Watch the temp warning on the dash and if you have the dash temp reader or a unit that reads temp dont let it get too hot. When the car gets warm the valve will open up and coolant will flow through the full system.

 

how can I check if the water pump is working?
can I get an inspection mirror in someplace to see if the shaft is spinning?

 

If you recently replaced the thermostat and there are no issues that point to it being faulty then you don't need to spend the extra money on a new unit. When a water pump begins to fail, you'll notice that the car tends to overheat at low engine speed, such as sitting at a stoplight. When you accelerate, the engine temperature will drop. Now, this is not always indicative of a water pump, but a good starting point. You may also want to try squeezing the top radiator hose with the engine warmed up and running. You should feel pressure build up on the back of the hose and surge once it is released. If you feel no pressure, it's a fair bet that the water pump is failing. And also, the obvious one, check for any signs of leakage.

 

The water pump will leak near the pump itself or the flange between the pump and the block sometimes. It works off the Supercharger.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...pump-leak.html


https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...t-leaking.html



All I can thin of is that the thermostat is flipped is something ?

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...at-change.html

 

Vitally important is to use the correct coolant. I believe that all MINIs use Pentosin G-11 (Pentafrost NF) coolant, but mixing OAT (like Dexcool) and HOAT coolants can gel in the heater core and completely plug it, as well as other small passages in the cooling system which could lead to engine overheating. It sounds to me that it was likely that your vehicle had mixed coolants at some point.

 

Yep, thanks for the mention UL, G11 is the blue MINI coolant they do use.

 

ive been using gx-05, except this time I used prestone....

so I checked it after work, the pressure on the hose is pretty good, opened up the bleeder valve and no bubbles, level in the reservoir was good also

no heres the wird part but it may prove the heater core is the only prob. this is also only a semi logical guess....

so there are 4 upper vents driver left/drivers right, passenger left/passenger right.
I had mentioned before that the hoses to the heater core are very hot, and the exposed part of the heater core is hot as well.

now the drivers left has heat coming out, a little less on drivers right, way less on passenger left and I would consider none on the passenger right. so it makes sense (to Me) that the heater core is not filling up, only partially. or enough on its left side to have air pushed threw it to warm it up?

Make sense?

 

it was the heater core, replaced it, now I have ample heat

 

Glad to hear that fixed your issue. Thanks for the update.

 

Thanks for the update, glad you were able to get it done. Feels good with the heat back.

 

it does feel good with heat back, but.....
now it all heat all the time, I have the auto heat function, and it doesn't seem to blend. although if I set it to low it does have cool air coming out, but any tick above that it hot air coming out, what should I look at to fix this? a warm car is awesome, but getting cooked in your car in the winter? not so much...

 

You might have a blend door not working ? 64116910916

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...9-no-heat.html

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...r-linkage.html

 

could be but I checked all those when I could get heat in the first place. what about the temp sensor?

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=64_1163

number 4 in the diagram...

 

64116943846 it's possible if you checked all you connections. That would be the next step.

Comes with the plug and sensor itself.

https://www.ecstuning.com/Search/SiteSearch/64116943846/