hi all

i have a grand voyager 2.8 crd
i have only had it a few weeks and got a great deal
the interior heaters were not getting warm so i spent time on here and found the 2nd thermostat fix which i completed. this definitely had an impact however it has not solved problem entirely. it does warm up but doesnt warm as much as our other voyager.
the aux heater comes on but that too doesnt seem to produce any heat
i warmed car up today untill cooling fan came on. thermostat open and all pipes seemed warm enough. strangely the gauge was still well below half way

are there any other things i could do to improve heating
is there a way to tell if the aux heater is working properly.

thanks for any advice

 

The aux heater is for warming op the engine coolant only I think.
If you have:
*Gastank > 1/2 full
*power button for the blower on "on"
*Temperature button on "full"
*Engine is cold and outside temp is very cold
Your Aux heater should produce a "whizzling" sound and you can feel some (warm) airflow from the small exhaust pipe somwhere in the middle of the car at the driverside (at least in my leftside steering car )

If the car doesnt warm up (quickly) enough in cold weather you could place a windshield in front of the radiator.
I cut out a sturdy piece of canvas and mounted that between the grill and the radiator to keep out the cold riding wind.
That works great!
You cant see its there (behind the grill) but my engine heats up a LOT quicker and during long drives the temp gauge gets slightly above "half" in stead of far below half.
Cabin heating works better too with temps like that

 

99p pipe lagging from Screwfix - update - I'm still using the same 99p lagging this year and it works fine as expected. In the warm[er] weather it never went over the half on the temp gauge. 'bigdaveh' should clean the cabin filter and make sure the door is in its airtight shut position for cabin temp. The Webasto Thermo-top 'Vmaxxer' points out consumes about 0.30L/H says warms the engine water not the cabin, there is a different Webasto Air-top for truck cabins but that's a different thing.

I'm not sure where 'bigdaveh' starts with his inline stat [fans kicked in] but I would do the 99p trick and :

- what temp after 15 minutes with the cabin heater to auto and low fan
- what temp after 30 minutes with the cabin heater to auto and low fan

Use the same settings on the same[ish] °C day and feed back here.

 

I have sold my 2.5crd,but it had the same issue. I (don't laugh) put a small piece of hard board infront of the radiator and a small sponge to maintain a small gap between the board and radiator. Worked well.

This was a common remedy in the 70's & 80's

 

I had a Volvo 122S back in early 70's that had a roller blind in front of the radiator and was operated by a chain that went right to the dash where it could be pulled or released. Emmm still got the chain to this day, yeh I know sad.

 

Moscovitch in the 60's it had a pull up and down lever that moved a clunky metal blind, the soddin thing went over hill and dale without hesitation with 2 wheel drive and was godsend to me - warm as toast, if it could cope with the Urals, then Yorkshire should not be .. .. and was not a problem.

 

I't could be a bad coolant mix .... If the Oem. coolant is mixed with normal blue coolant it will block the heater element . The mix with Oem. and "normal" coolant will make some kind of crystal/sluss and block Aux heater & heater element. If your lucky a radiator flush can solve it. I have change a few elements becourse a back yard mechanic didn't know.

 

Now your just bragging

 

Had a Toyota Landcruiser with same system

 

No Chrysler1 the 122s had the blind as a standard fit. My later 164 didn't have one though.