Don't be a numpty like me and leave the two little round plastic/rubber seal things out. It leaves the heater slightly warm all the time. At least I am hoping that's what I have done wrong. Oh well Live and learn I guess.

more likely pipes on wrong way round and hot coolant is alowed into the matrix , rather than stopping at the heater tap

What appears to happen is the control valve simply blocks the holes the seals go in to varying degrees depending on the slider in the car. It looks like it can only fully close with the 2 little plastic things with rubber on (these make the hole slightly smaller and raised). Put them in today and all seems good now anyway, not that it mattered until summer . Just need to sort out the temperature going up and down and up and down again, which I suspect is an airlock somewhere.

Favorit and Felicia heaters are in my opinion one of the best around. They give out almost scorching heat on the highest setting. What I also think is brilliant is the fact that the matrix is under the bonnet. Not only does it make replacement very easy, it also means that if there is a leak it doesn't flood the interior with antifreeze.

Yeah been reading other people's tales of woe having to dismantle the dash, which is more complex to dismantle than that of the Favorit, to get to the heater matrix. Glad I only had a valve to remove to put those two tiny seals in

Speaking about the Fav heating system, has anyone found it to be less than adequate when comparing it to say a ford or vauxhall? My fav has the worst heating system of all the cars ive owned.

I'm wandering if its failing or was it just not good from the factory?

Speaking about the Fav heating system, has anyone found it to be less than adequate when comparing it to say a ford or vauxhall? My fav has the worst heating system of all the cars ive owned.

If you mean the heat level itself, I find myself having to turn it down. I can't leave it on full for an entire journey or I'll be cooked. If there's poor heating I'd suspect either an air lock in the heater matrix, or a blockage/choked with deposits. Heat tends to start being noticeable before the temperature gauge makes a significant rise from the bottom.

I've had the fan itself stop working once which was resolved with a liberal spray of WD40 on the contacts.

Thanks for the info mate. The heating up isnt a problem, it runs hot very quickly but its the rate of the flow of hot air through the vents, its pathetic, even on full speed. I suspect you maybe right about a blockage though, im always digging out leaves and crap out of the heater intake. I dont really want to have to remove the whole dash though and mess about with it.

Air flow is always poor from side vents. As it's my first car can't compare the air flow with others. You can stick a flat screwdriver down the side of the air vent things and wiggle them out (they just pop in and out not stuck to anything) to get at where the leaves collect in there, so you don't need to remove the dash to get just behind the air vents.

The heating system is very poor, trust me, comparing it to every other car ive owned; bmw E30,sierra, saab, 3x volvo 300s, corolla, rover 216 - even my 1994 Astra merit has a better heating system. The only car that was worse than my Fav was my Rapid, the heater in that was pants, virtually non existant - which is strange, because the Czech republic in winter isnt one of the warmest countries in europe.