10

I have 2006 VW beetle with the 2.5L engine. Once the engine has warmed to operating temperature, and I am driving it around, the heater works great. As soon as I stop at a red light, or am idling for any length of time the air coming out of the vents begins to lose temperature until it blows cool air. All I have to do to get hot air again is give it a little gas, say 200 more rpms, and the heater immediately responds with warmer air, hot air if I maintain 1000 rpms. I have read related information on here and think that if the heater works great at other times, I do not have a blender door issue, clogged heater core, or low coolant level. The coolant level is fine, by the way. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Improve this question
2
  • 3
    Does the coolant temp gauge show a decrease in coolant temperature when the heater output cools down?
    – Timo Geusch
    Dec 23, 2012 at 18:56
  • Thanks for the responses! Sorry I did not see them sooner. Holidays and all. The coolant temp is constant and does not fluctuate when the car is at idle and the air blows cool.The car was made, I believe in Mexico, but for the US market.
    – deeptread
    Jan 7, 2013 at 19:35

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
7

Problem solved! The key was to finally locate the source of OBDII code PO 0171, left bank lean, which I realize was not part of my original question. Anyways, I found a leaky air hose connection between the manifold and the MAF, once I corrected it, the engine idle smoothed out and now we have heat as designed at idle.

Improve this answer
2
  • 2
    Does anyone know how those two problems can be related? What was stopping the coolant flow to the heater core?
    – method
    Nov 22, 2016 at 4:28
  • Does the vehicle have a heater control valve that is vacuum operated? If so, a vacuum leak would impact the heater control valve.
    – Thomas Carlisle
    Nov 22, 2016 at 22:25
4

You may have air trapped in the cooling system. The air needs to be burped out. The method varies by make, model, year, etc. Due to variation between models can you tell us what country the car was made for?

Improve this answer
1
  • Thanks for the responses! Sorry I did not see them sooner. Holidays and all. The coolant temp is constant and does not fluctuate when the car is at idle and the air blows cool.The car was made, I believe in Mexico, but for the US market.
    – deeptread
    Jan 7, 2013 at 19:28

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .