Wow. So over the weekend i'm on the way back from OSU and i started noticing condensation on my innerwindshield. Wasn't much of a problem. Then i dropped my buddy off at his house in canton and let the car sit for about a half an hour. Got back in and a couple minutes down the road steam started pouring out of my dash vents and cracks like nothing i've seen before. I drove to the nearest gas station because my temperature started hitting melt-down. Threw in a jug of water into the coolant resevoir for a temporary fix. Had a little bit of condensation on the windshield but no steam on the way back. Now its pouring steam again.
So this is like the 4th or 5th time my heatercore has died on me. Before it was usually water dripping out of the spillover line that comes out of the firewall. My mechanic always uses napa's warantee and gets a new heatercore and fixes it. This time i really can't afford the labor due to a nasty speeding ticket on 76.
I don't have my car manual with me at Kent. Does anyone know how difficult it is to replace a heater core, and about how much one is? All I have is some basic tools up here on campus.
Also, how can i prevent this from happening again? I have a tendency to replace coolant with water when i notice it leaking. Does this create a catalyst effect on the wear of the heatercore or does napa just make sh***y cores?
Any insight into this would greatly help.
thanks!
Forgot to put this in. Don't know if it'll really help. '97 2.2 OHV Cav
there not easy.. id use the warrenty get a new one and take it somewhere else. 4 times is unheard of ive never had any go bad
Andrew Szabo wrote:Before it was usually water dripping out of the spillover line that comes out of the firewall.
Eh? There's no spillover line in the firewall... that's the drain for condensation from the air conditioning. Water is SUPPOSED to drip from that.
If you've got a sweet smell in the cabin... and wet floor mats... then your heater core is gone. if the mechanic didn't fix it right the first time, why keep going back? He's obviously no good at it.
I've never had to replace a heater core yet.... on a J-body that is. And I've had 3 now, hundreds of thousands of miles between all three.
