Ford Fiesta car heating not working, any ideas please?

harrisff125

Today has been a succesful day for myself and ill explain why.. at the end of my passage.

I've had many problems with ford fiesta zetec 1.25s i used to have (my old car) a black one 2000 W reg.. which gave me experience of most of the problems and how to fix them.. from heating not working at all, heating not being hot, heating bein hot only, lights (internal/ext), cam belt, dial troubles, thermostat, tires, tracking, wing mirrors to door locks, clutch and suspension.

granted i dont know about what alot of other deeper mechanical problems are (im not a mechanic, but i have a good imagaination of what these could be and understand how awkward to resolve so much that a garage may well have to do it for me. i.e the engine having to come out)

but..
i can now confidently maintain/repair a ff zetec 1.25 and i can give it a great life until it inhevitably dies one day. we got a good deal goin in our time together lol. also i'll never be skanked by a garage or company on one. (my new car btw is a silver ff zetec 1.25 51 plate)

(anyway back to my old car) head gasket went on it neway when i knew nothin really about cars and i was screwin of course lol i did pay like 300-400 quid to get it done.. but the fact of the matter, is it should have never got that bad to have gone on my own accord.. there were signs i should have reacted to but never and i didnt take it to a garage until it was too late.

the process of the head gasket goin was i had a water leak(basic, quite common problem) which lead to the radiator not working (which was the reason for the car not being able to stay cool and lead to the engine overheating) also this was why i had no hot air from my fans) and basically i kept drivin like a !!!!!!, filling it up etc and i ended up driving to a work night do and on the way back the next day (good night) i drove back and the engine overheated and was bone dry etc probably had little oil and then eventually the head gasket went when i was driving one day.

looking back yes all i had to do was a little bit of car maintenance and have awareness of the possible and current problems, i used to have awareness but do nothin about it really, until i got sick of paying so much for garage work. i still have awareness of problems but now i know how to act and what needs to be done and what could be leading to the problem.

Now i have a 51 plate zetec 1.25 as mentioned above and had no problems with it really other than the usual lights going out etc.. so its been fine... however last night i was at morrisons gettin cash out and i noticed steam coming out the front of the bonnet, which is what occured with my w reg fiesta.. one of them signs i didn't take too seriously lol.

Neway this time i took action because about 10 mins after noticing the steam i noticed my thermostat had gone almost all the way up and the car was overheating (yes i should have noticed this straight away but i never until i was driving up a dual carriageway. I opened the bonnet to hear water hissing n sizzling off heated parts of the car, but i couldnt identify where the water was dripping/ leaking from, but it was from somewhere(lmao). Then i did notice i had NO water in my coolant lmao. so i was like damn. so last night i continued to drive but for short periods only and let my car completely cool down until i drove it again. Yes i did fill it with distilled water and check that i had enough water (between min/max) thing is after 5 minutes of driving my water had completely gone and wen i looked into the coolant it was visible only at the very bottom. so before each journey i filled up.

I woke up this morning to find i had no water in my coolant again, when it was fine when i left my car the night before. I looked under my bonnet and checked for where that water leak that i couldnt see last night was actually coming from.

Well, there are two pipes connected from the engine leading to the heat control valve under the bottom of the windscreen. the one on the right out of the two pipes (if you were looking in the perspective of infront of the bonnet looking towards the vehicle) was entirely disconnected from the hole visible to where it should be connected lol. :rotfl:

neway i investigated into the problem and how to fix it and yes i found that (from advice from someone who works at halfords) i need a new heater control valve. which is basically a 4 way valve.

I got it from (Heater Control Valve) SUREPARTS for £25, great company they even had my ISO connector for my head unit and punto rear wiper blades lol. :j

Well i went on to replace this heat control valve stumbling amongst problems such as having difficulty with the pipe grips which keep the pipes tightened to the valves, hand space in getting the wires connected/disconnected and whilst getting the original heater control valve out i had to snap the valve outlets (3 of them) which remained broken off in the pipes.. (if your wandering about the 4th thats the one which had already snapped off when i noticed my pipe not leading anywhere lol) then i had to get these snapped off plastic valves out so i could reconnect the pipes to the new heater control valve. Neway today i completed this task and filled up my water to a normal level.. and i thought right moment of truth in 5 mins after starting to drive my car.. to see if the thermostat would read halfway and to see if the fans could supply me with warm heat. neway after 5 mins my thermostat was all over the place going up and down according to my driving and speed. but success i had warm heat.

when I got to my destination and noticed i had no water in my coolant, I let my car cool down then i filled up and watched the water level decrease and i was empty again. so I kept filling up and went for a drive. Obviously i had lost alot of water from the overall system from that day or maybe two, three, four or more days of lack of water. so i kept filling it up basically and now i drive and the water has stopped going down and the thermostat reads half way. well i call that a revive

All this time my mother and girlfriend were booking me into a garage for next tuesday.. when i insisted i would save money.. (but nooo im not capable ) if i went to a garage im guessing i would get a bill of like 70-80

breakdown of 35 for the part, 30 labour and the reast VAT
or something so i saved a good 35, 50 quid tops.

I thought i would take some time to post this today since it might help someone one day and the thread is like 3 years old lol i noticed there was a 9 month gap from the last message from this other guys post!

so today (7/11/09) has been succesful because..
I repaired my water leak and cured the heat from my fans and stopped the enginge from overheating URAAA!

I just feel sorry for my old car, oh well.. :T

Harris

goldspanners

harrisff125 wrote: »

when I got to my destination and noticed i had no water in my coolant, I let my car cool down then i filled up and watched the water level decrease and i was empty again. so I kept filling up and went for a drive. Obviously i had lost alot of water from the overall system from that day or maybe two, three, four or more days of lack of water. so i kept filling it up basically and now i drive and the water has stopped going down and the thermostat reads half way. well i call that a revive

now you should get some of that water out (approx half of it) and then top it back up with antifreeze. you dont want anymore leaks.

gm3suz

I had similar problems with my T registered Ford Fiesta, heater was on all the time and then after a few months it seemed to die and I was left with no heating in the car. I took the advice of someone on a similar forum and changed the heater control valve and it was great, heating was back on. I went up to the hospital to visit a sick friend, a 20 minute drive and the heatin was great. An hour later on my way home the heating would not come on, it had failed once more and that is nearly a year ago, I survived most of the winter without heating but I just cannot face another winter in the cold. Can anyone suggest what may have happened, please, and how to fix it ?
TIA, Dan

Premier_2

Usual cause of heater failure, especially if you've just drained the water, is an air lock to the heater matrix.
Ensuring that isn't the cause is where I would first start.

Scorp

...reach for your fav. punch/large screwdriver/small drift/glock 17 and a hammer (the glock comes with its own built in) and hit the metal valve body with a few sharp taps (double tap in the 9mm's case) and hey presto/wallah/bingo/banzai! :beer: :T:cool:

...mine stopped blasting hot and has returned to the setting known as cool.. turn back to hot, and it gets hot, turn back to cool and there's a physical change on the air temp, you can feel the step as the valve operates, and its now cool, much cheaper and fairly quick to do

Might not work for corroded/old/pre-glocked valves, I dont know, but it worth a shot (pardon the pun)

Thanks to this Fred for the background info and build up.

Cheers
Scorp
South Africa

Scorp

...maybe a lack of coolant or not enough in the water permits build up of minerals around the valve disabling it?

rachelsilver1985

I have a 1998 ford fiesta finesse and the heating is not working in the vehicle. It is blowing but cold air and have checked colant and thats at the right level no Im not confident enough to fix myself so gonna take it into a garage. So I dont have the wool pulled over my eyes what do ya think we are talking here?

Keith

As above, it'll be the heater control valve stuck in the cold position.

I'd guess at a price of £35 + VAT for a genuine valve + an hours labour.

damoace2004

Hi There, I dont know if you've fixed your problem but i had the same problem and i managed to fix it today and it didnt cost a penny, i hope this helps you too.
firstly i removed the heater control valve located at the rear of the engine bay in the centre which has 2 pipes going in the front and out the back. My pipes were labled L and R. I removed the solinoid and conected a battery accross it to check it was working. Mine just needed freeing up and a quick clean. I then connected the cable back on the unit, whiched the ignition on and turned the heater dial to hot and put the blower on inside the car and then i helt the in and out of the Left side and blew through the right, it should let air pass through freely if it has worked. If it has, i then turned the unit to cold and tried again, i shouldnt let air through. If this is what is now happening it is fixed. Just fit the unit back onto the car. conect all tubes except the L input. start the engine and as soon as the coolant starts coming out connect the L input pipe up again. Dont forget to fill your coolant level up as it will have lose some.
Hope this helps
Damian

Stigy

mr_accountant wrote: »

i seem to remember a similar problems on a lot of small ford on www.honestjohn.co.uk it was something called the 'water valve' which may be faulty. I recall it was around £40 from ford and took around 1hour to fit.

If i was you id go to the honestjohn website and post your query there too. Its in the technical section of the forum

Indeed, that usually answers the question regarding the hot air only issue, but I don't think it works the other way around...I am having that issue with my Ford SportKa.