Heater Matrix repair on a 306

non.basic

Hi,
I need my Heater Matrix changed and I was looking for the cheapest possible way. For those that don't know it involves taking the whole dash board apart and is a pretty big labour intensive job.

I saw the AA has parts and labour cover which is £58 + AA membership. That would cover the heater matrix...

Are there anymore plans which would do the same thing but cheaper? AA works out to be £98.

Cheers :beer:

Dave_G_5

Cheapest possible way is to join the two pipes together before they go throught the bulkhead and do without a heater, just buy a wooly jumper for winter instead!

non.basic

done that but I really need to sell the car and cant do that with no heater and such a big repair still to do:(

Dave_G_5

Next cheapest is either be honest to any buyers and tell them you have bypassed it, or get your hands dirty and start removing the dash.

abomb1969

Buy one of those electric heaters that live on the dash?

non.basic

no I'm looking for the cheapest way to get a repair done, I dont think I could do it myself I lack the skills!

chrisw

If it's just a small leak, you could try adding something like Stop-Leak to the coolant. I used it to stop a fairly big leak on a coolant pipe a couple of years ago and it's still holding.

skiddy2k

chrisw wrote:

If it's just a small leak, you could try adding something like Stop-Leak to the coolant. I used it to stop a fairly big leak on a coolant pipe a couple of years ago and it's still holding.

you can try RADWELD or BARS LEAKS which are treatments that you pour into your radiator and it seals small leaks in the cooling system.
you can pick it up from your local halfords store for aound 4 quid.

worth a try for the price!

good luck,
Skiddy

non.basic

I saw my mechanic mate yesterday and he gave me a can of this stuff called cel-it. It seems to have worked(touch wood)!
I tried one I got from Halfords and it did nothing. I recommend cel-it for anyone with the same problems!

Thanks

ohreally

I recently replaced the matrix in a Vectra and it was fairly straight forward - a fair bit of dismantling but nothing too drastic,perhaps a read through a Hayns manual may give you some confidence to attempt it??