Mk 5 Fiesta Heating Issue

[mg-tart]

Hi all,

daughter's Mk 5 fiesta 1.3 flight.

Had an issue with the heating cooling whereby there was none....ie, no heat to the inside of the car and no cooling to the engine.

Daughter became adept at turning off the engine when the temp light came on and then starting up to drive off again. Traffic queues were.....Interesting and avoided! - she did quite well considering she'd only passed her test 3 weeks before.

Managed to fix that with a new heater control valve. Water flow restored. Cooling working - no overheating. (swapped the engine fan too as it appeared liefeless) seemed like we avoided the head gasket issue too - this was 5 months ago

Now we have a different problem.

Have kept an eye on the water and seemed fairly ok. topped up a bit as some was leaking from the thermostat housing. but for the last month or so the heater has been running at full pelt and super-heating the dashboard. Even when the dial is turned to cold on the selector the top of the dash was overly hot and the air inside the car gets sickly warm. It's fine running round with the windows open at the moment but not that convenient at times

Question - is this just the reverse problem and the heater control valve is stuck permanently open ? ( electrickery is a magical mystery to me so don't know how to check current/resistance in circuits etc)

Should I be looking at something else? Is it a problem with the dial control?

Any help / suggestions or shared experiences would be welcomed.

Cheers

andy

[jon6]

I'm going out on a limb here, but I would imagine the resistor pack is gone on it? I had the same issue on the mondeo I had.

[mg-tart]

I'm going out on a limb here, but I would imagine the resistor pack is gone on it? I had the same issue on the mondeo I had.

Hi, thanks for the input but doesn't that just apply with the fan turned on?

Haven't touched the fan unit and just have all the vents closed to try to stifle the heat coming through as much as possible.

Other threads on here have said about the resistor pack but I think that just refers to the fan running only on the number 4 setting (something to do with the restiction of electrickery on settings 1,2 & 3.....can they really do that??)

I think I'll chance my arm (wallet contents) on another HCV and see if that does the trick.

thanks

Andy

[orcomma]

so hot air is coming through even when the fan is on 0?

[jon6]

Right - I see what you're saying now.

Well, a google search certainly does suggest another control valve. Did you get your first one from a scrappy? If not, I'd take it back and exchange it if possible.

While we're here, as it seems a common issue on the Mk 5s, are they hard to fit at all?

[mintalkin]

check the voltage at the electrical plug at the valve,with the engine running you should get

Cold 14volts

Mid pulsating from 14volts - 7 volts

Hot 0 volts

if the voltage is correct it looks like a dodgy valve,if the voltage is not correct it could be the control panel itself.

[ali_reid70]

Hi all,

daughter's Mk 5 fiesta 1.3 flight.

Had an issue with the heating cooling whereby there was none....ie, no heat to the inside of the car and no cooling to the engin

Cheers

andy

[ali_reid70]

hi,i had exactly the same issue after replacing the h.c.v. on my mk5 1.6 zetec with an aftermarket part.The ford h.c.v. isnt much more expensive and is still working perfectly.The pattern part developed the fault 2months after fitting.Al.

[mg-tart]

hi,i had exactly the same issue after replacing the h.c.v. on my mk5 1.6 zetec with an aftermarket part.The ford h.c.v. isnt much more expensive and is still working perfectly.The pattern part developed the fault 2months after fitting.Al.

Thanks for the reply chaps.

I toyed with the £44 ford part compared to the supposed OE equivalent £17 part and went cheap (or Cheep, whichwever way u look at it!!)

I suppose when you factor in time and antifreeze it's no different but , hey!

Thanks for the info on the voltage check. Will try this.

The basic problem seems to be no way of shutting off heat to the inside of the car. If we close the vents the dash gets close to melting point and some of the air will inevitably seep thru into the cabin. The fan unit is on "0" all the time as using it would melt us. It does suggest the HCV but will check out the voltage aspect if I can fathom it....like I said, it's a magical mystery this elecktrickery stuff. (how does it get to earth in a car when I've got rubber tyres??)

(Will have a tinker this weekend....well probably today actually - don't have anything else planned ........... (sits back and waits for the royalist backlash!)

Cheers

[jon6]

For what it's worth, I found the same thing with the mondeo: Ford parts would go the distance, cheap aftermarket parts wouldn't. The Mondeo used to eat coil packs. A cheap part would last 2 months tops; I'd get a good year out of the Ford one. For the extra cash, I'd say it's just worth doing it right the first time.