Hi guys,

In 4 weeks, my car has had 3 HCV's (2 replacements and the one I bought it with) and its still blowing hot air !

First time round the unit worked for about four weeks, But yesterday it had to be replaced as it had sprung a leak and my car overheated ! I was wondering if there could be another problem thats causing the part to break all the time ? Or is my garage just using dodgy parts and I need to get quite annoyed with them ?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Your garage could be using cheap replacement parts. These do tend to fail quickly but not normally as quick as that. The Ford Main Dealer part is less than £40 and would come with a guarantee. The only other part that could be faulty is the heater control panel which is behind the control knob. It may not be regulating the voltage correctly to operate the solenoid on the heater control valve.

When I removed the original HCV from my daughters 04 KA...bought new,

I found that bits of the valve had broken off and got into the cooling sys...I wonder if this could have happend to yours and these bits of plastic could have stuck in the new valve stopping it from closing...maybe a good flush and a new valve,

I used a pattern part I got off ebay...still working ok.

Nick.