.felicia matrix

[Guest lynn61]

Hello everyone, sorry if I am in the wrong part of the forum, first time posting. Anyhow I have a skoda felicia, yr 2000 13,00 I have just had to have the water pump replaced and they said the heater matrix was leaking as well, so they capped it off and said we wouldn't be able to get any heat. Just found out we need to be at a family funeral which is about 4 hrs away.(plus coming back same day) Will the car be safe to drive that far, it's just when it would start to overheat we would just switch the heater on and it would be ok, so obviously we cannot do that now. I have just paid out £170 to get that sorted and they say the matrix will be another £160 which I cannot do at the moment.

Also have a problem with it cutting out when we are getting to junctions/roundabout, though sometimes we can stop it if we are quick on the accelorater. Garage couldn't figure out what it was and it didn't conk out when they took it out.

[auroan]

The cutting out could be the throttle idle switch. I also found the poor idle was fixed by re-doing the valve clearances.

Regards the heater matrix. Take the motor for a run and then sit with it ticking over and see if it starts to over heat again now you had the pump fixed. If not then you'll be ok for your trip. If it does start to over heat again then there is a fault somewhere else in the cooling system.

[Guest lynn61]

Thank you, will try it out this weekend.

Is the throttle idle switch easy to fix (as in extremely easy) apart from putting water etc in the car we don't know much about them, or would the garage need to sort it?

[djaychela]

You should be OK on a run as far as overheating is concerned; the garage should have checked out the radiator fan switch when they changed the pump, the only overheating I've had on a 1300 Fel is when it's in traffic and the electric fan doesn't cut in.

As for the cutting out, no it wouldn't be possible for you to do if that's your level of skill, unless you're willing to give it a go (please dont take this as being condescending!), but the switch is inside the throttle body, and removing the casing for that involves some care and a screwdriver, and removing the throttle body first; probably not something you'd want to do as your introduction to car repairs. Itd probably be easier just to get a secondhand throttle body and replace it, this involves only (I think) 7 bolts, 1 clip, 2 connectors and the throttle cable to do.

[auroan]

If you can get the fault codes read with vcds or equivalent, you have a bit more of an idea whats at fault regarding the idle.

[Guest lynn61]

Don't worry, I don't see it as condescending at all, appreciate every bit of help.

The garage said they have something for problems like that to see whats wrong but for some reason they said it didn't work with mine:confused:

We got a new fan in , got itchy fingers though and don't think we have given it chance to see if it works, though the car does not like traffic jams.

Think I would just buy another car if I had the money but that's not an option and it's only got about 82,000 on the clock, so we should get more from it.

[TeflonTom]

last time i bought a heater matrix from serck/unipart it was about £50 for the part, obviously i fitted it myself but i suppose the price you've been quoted inlcudes fitting which isn't too bad a price to be honest. could be a whole host of things causing the cutting out issue but my first choice would be throttle body related.

[anewman]

could be a whole host of things causing the cutting out issue but my first choice would be throttle body related.

Would a can of carb cleaner be a good place for the OP to start perhaps?!

[TeflonTom]

yeh it's a good start, although it may idle quite fast after the throttle body is sprayed with the cleaner, but alas it will settle down on it's own after a while...

i dont recommend taking the throttle housing apart unless you are 100% certain you know what you are doing, there's lots of tiny parts inside, although it cant hurt to spray the resistance wiper tracks inside with switch cleaner.

if you give us an idea of where you are roughly, maybe a kindly member can pop over to lend a hand

[auroan]

After having similar issues to you lynn61 if you near ish to york, I'm happy to pop over with vagcom and give your motor a check.