1998 Polo 1.4 16v Heating/Cooling issues

[stevepud]

Hi All,

This is my first post, and want to say seems like a great forum so far.


The issue I have with my girlfriends Polo is as follows...
(Sorry this is gonna be a long post, but I wanna get all the info I can think of in the post from the start)

Last year the head gasket blew, and the garage replaced tons of stuff, including water pump, thermostat housing, thermostat and cam belt. All seemed ok

The cars done 62000 miles in all, and only about 4000 since the head gasket was done in Feb 07
Since the weather has turned cold, she's been noticing a few things, namely...


1. The car seems to take an age to warm up enough for the temp needle to reach half way
2. Heater only blows warm air at best, never seems to get really warm or even hot.
3. Theres lots of condensation inside the car, which has been freezing on the inside of the screen overnight, fun fun fun

(I havent noticed the rad fan working)


I've looked at the car, and this is what I've noticed...

Top rad hose takes about 15 minutes of the car idling before the radiator end of it even is remotely warm
At this time the bottom hose is still cold
Input and output hoses for the heater matrix are nice and hot, even though only WARM air is blown through the heater.
During that time, the temp needle reached half way,. and the rad fan STILL never came on!

I removed the top hose from the rad, and water was coming out from the rad, not very fast but the engine was only idling
I removed the bottom hose from the engine end and again water came out as above

I left the hose off long enough till hot water came out (whilst constantly filling up the expansion chamber to prevent any air getting drawn in)

Connected pipes, and STILL the bottom hose wont get any hotter
Heater air seems to be getting a little warmer, but nothing to get excited about.

Squeezed the top and bottom pipes and water definately runs into and out of the expansion chamber.


And finally onto the questions I need answering!

• Am I right in thinking that the Rad bottom hose connects at the engine end into the thermostat housing?
• Is it easy to get that stat out to test?
• Am I right in thinking that theres a pin on the stat that acts against the housing, and if the housing is damaged, that pin wont work, and the stat stays closed???

Apparently the car has had 2 or 3 stats since my GF bought it in 2003.
That cant be normal can it?

Looks like I get the fun job of pulling it apart tomorrow to see whats going on!

Any help and advice wil be greatly appreciated, specially if I get any before tomorrow morning!!!!
Cheers
Steve

[stevepud]

Good morning....

Anyone???

Cheers
Steve

[stevepud]

OK, I took the stat out, and instpected the housing
The bridge is intact, however theres a deep whole in it where the pin presses against, about 2 or 3mm deep I'd say and the exact size of the pin.

ALso I dropped the stat in boligin water and held the pin agains tht ebottom of the jug, and all that happened was the pin went IN the stat about 3 mm... normal operation or not for that kinda stat?????


Finally, put it all back together, bled the system, and quite quickly the heater rad pipes got hot but only lukewarm air from the heater.
After about 12-15 mins, the guage was at 90
still only luke warm air
20 minutes and about 2 mins at 2000rpm the stat finally opened, bottom rad pipe got hot and heater was blowing HOT air.
Then the fan came on...

THis all sounds wrong to me,
What do you think???