Misting Windsceen

[Gordy000]

Hi

I have a problem, hope someone can help.

I have a VW passat S TDI 110bhp and during the winter the windscreen was misting up no matter how hard i tried to demist it using the climatronic. This seamed to disapper when the warmer weather appeared. A month ago the coolant level light has coming on and warning of low collant. So i filled it up. This is happening quite often. The last week or so the temp gauge on the dash normally sits at 90 deg. When I'm driving now it sits at 90 then falls to nothing then back up to 90 again. This happen about 10 times over an hour journey. Also when i check the coolant after an hour journey, its below the minumun. I refill to the max and carry on for another hour, when i check it's back to the minumun. If i look under the water tank it is soaking so most if not all of the water is coming out of the tank. The tank has been replaced but is still doing this. There must be something creating excess pressure that is making it come out of the tank? Also today i was driving with the climatronic on Low and then turned it up to 21 deg. Steam, or at least that was what it looked like, came out of the vents. Smelt funny. Steamed up the windscreen very quickly.

Has anybody any ideas of what may be wrong.

Head gasket? Heat exchanger? Evaportor? Temp Sensor?

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Gordon Wilson

[glynnd]

Sounds like the heater matrix

:biglaugh:

[Sam]

Soon as I read the title I thought heater matrix.

Do a search over on www.ClubB5.com for heater core and read the horror stories. That should give you some sort of idea as to what to expect/look out for.

[martinj]

Hi,

The demisting problem in the winter as the climatronic does not engage the air con below 4 deg C external air tempurate. (pretty sure it is 4 deg C but the hand book will confirm the exact figure) The problem you then have is that the air is not 'dried' by the air con and hence you don't get the same level of demisting. It is also not helped by any wetness brought into the car on wet clothes / shoes on the run up to winter period that sits in the carpets, etc.

Not much you can do short of driving with the windows down a bit every so often to help take the moisture out of the air, if you can stand the cold for a while, the other thing is to override the 'auto' fan setting on the climatronic to push greater amounts of air around the car generally.

I occassionally get the odd misting when I switch on for the first time, can't really think of any partern as to why, and it can smell a bit stail. Just seems to be one of those things that happens once in a while but does not seem to last and all is well afterwards....a 'feature' !

Martin

[brookesdj]

Is there any way to over ride the climatronic with respect to it switching off below 4 deg/c ?
It is very annoying this time of year with the cold weather.