Just bought another Octy, picking it up tomorrow, so will post some pics then. It's an 03 1.9TDi Elegance.

On the test drive everything was working apart from the heater - fans and climatic control etc. work, but only cold air was blowing. Temp gauge climbed at a reasonable rate (similar to my SDi) but settled at about 3/4 rather than 1/2. Any ideas?

Any help in getting to the bottom of this will be much appreciated

Cheers,

Chris

temp gauge should sit bang on 90 when the engine is warm - expect 10 minutes from starting to get warm, unless you you really rag it (which would be bad to do with a cold engine). A higher than 90 temp could indicate a water pump failure (needs a cambelt change, so factor in £300 for that).

If you could get no warm air out, then maybe there is an airlock, or a problem with the valves for the heater matrix. I haven't heard of this as a common problem on climatronic cars.

Thanks for the response. Car's done 230k with not much history so was thinking of a cambelt change anyway, I was reading about some other water pump issues earlier so could be the way forward. How easy is it to DIY?

230k.... nice :-) Cambelts should be every 4 years/60k. Water pump failures seem to be more common on the petrols than diesels, but still if your doing a belt change, a water pump is only another £30ish (iirc).

I changed my cambelt twice (and it was changed just before I bought it too). You ideally need a tool to tension the tensioner pulley. An extra pair of hands when doing aux tensioner, and a pair of eyes when turning the engine over by hand before marking everything up.

Low mileage really, my current hack has 262k

Fairly sure it is the water pump as the temp gauge got over 100 but rad was stone cold. Fingers crossed the 20 mile trip home didn't do any damage :S

Don't think I'll be able to do it myself as I haven't got the time or confidence (more used to working on an A+ series from 1980s Austin Rovers!) so will try and get it to a garage tomorrow.

It's also got a fairly hefty blow from the front-ish section of the exhaust - any ideas how much that will cost to put right?

Cheers,

Chris

Might be worth checking the thermostat is opening, as that could cause the cold rad (should not affect the cabin warm air though, iirc).

Exhaust - no idea - guess one needs to get under her and have a look. My '01 is still running with the original pipework :-)

Hmm think I may have bitten off more than I can stomach with this one so have decided to break for spares to keep my estate on the road (front end damage). See my other thread if you have any ideas which Elegance parts I can use to upgrade the Classic.

mbames - thanks for your input