Passat Heating Issue

Hi,
I picked my '99 Passat up last week, after a broken cam belt repair, obviously the garage having drained the coolant, as party of the process. Now the climatronic system hardy produces any hot air. It blows cold when the temperature is lowered, but hardly rises, even when I take the indicator up to the highest setting. There don't appear to be any error messages in the system. It all worked fine before the belt broke.

The car is back to the garage later this week, but they don't seem to think there's much they can do ! ! The heater matrix doesn'e seem to be airlocked, and all hoses get hot. Any suffestions I can offer to the garage. Cheers. RT

Did they fit a new water pump? I am seeing this issue with pattern (non genuine) water pumps. Bring the revs up to 2K and hold them there and see if heat starts to come out of the vents.

You say it doesn't seem airlocked?

Have you checked it ?

It is a 10 minute job to do yourself and may save you the hassle of having to get the car to the garage etc.

Basically, you back off the left hand hose on the spiggot until the bleed hole is exposed (hose should be marked) then simply undo the three screws holding the coolant reservoir on and raise it above the level of the bleed hole. Squeeze the top hose and water out of the bleed hole = job done / put hose back onto spiggot and re-fix coolant reservoir.

No, no new water pump. If I drive at cruising speed, a degree of warm air comes out, but feels lke 'rammed' air as opposed to heater blown air, if that makes sense. RT

I checked it without raising the header tank. When I pulled back the hose, water came out of the bleed hole, I assumed that was ok, I'll try again with the tank raised. Cheers RT

With the car stationary, bring the revs up to 2K and hold it there for about one minute to see if the air gets hot.

If water came out, probably ok, but probably wouldn't hurt.

Have got vagcom? If so scan it for faults and if neccessary measure the flap angle on the heat control motor.

And as above if that fails (always cheapest first imo) suspect the water pump.

Morning all,

I've tried the easy stuff suggested with no obvious success. The Passat has been back to the garage and they've flushed out the cooling system, had the rad out and checked it, changed thermostats, etc, and checked the water pump. There are no error code in the computor. They've given me the car back to see if it's any better. If it's better it's only marginal and it still strglles to clear the screen on a frosty morning like today. It still doesn't warm up like it did before the head repair when the cam belt broke.

I guess the garage are running out of ideas, they said maybe it's the heater matrix blocked, but I assume thats a bigish job, dismantling the dash.

Any other ideas ? ? :confused:

Thanks in advance. Cheers. RT