My truck has given me no problems what so ever until now. A few days ago, I could not get the heat to come on in my truck and it was about 20 degrees outside. Yesterday it was 70 degrees outside and I could not get the air to come on, only heat would come out (no matter where the **** was positioned in relations to hot or cold). Today it was back to about 15 degrees when I got up, and there was no heat at all. Even turning it on and off a few times did not work. Does this sound like a typical heating element problem? Is there anything I should check first before getting this looked at? I have heard that the heating core is a very expensive fix because of the fact they have to break down the dash to get to it. Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks

Robert


I forgot to mention before that yesterday it would blow hot air even though it was 70 outside and I had the **** on cold, but if I turned it off and twisted the **** back and forth a few times, it would blow cold air for about 5 minutes and then would automatically switch back to heat on its own (even though the **** was still on cold). Today I could not get the heat to come on at all, even though the temp guage showed the truck warmed up.

Edit: There is no fog coming out of the vents when I try to turn the heat on, so I dont know for sure if this is a heater core problem. No smell of antifreeze either.

 

Ok I checked out the thermostat, and found that the truck was not overheating at all, nor was it taking a long time to heat up. The upper radiator hose was hot, which means the coolant is circulating and the thermostat is open. I assume this is normal.

Overall, still cannot get any heat...any ideas?

 

have you checked for a vacuum leak

 

I checked for a vacuum leak, but did not find anything out of the ordinary. Since the blend door was broken that is something that I am going to have to fix anyway as soon as the part arrives. If it is not the problem, I will be posting back on here for any other ideas. If it is for sure the problem, I will post back on here anyway to let you guys know. Thanks so much!

 

I had a similar problem on my 99 XL. Turned out the temp **** was slipping on its shaft! I just changed the ****, and everything works fine now.

Ya gotta love those simple fixes!

 

This also happened to my '99 XL. I glued the cracked **** several years ago and it's worked ever since ...