Aux Heater (again)

[Guest oneill]

My aux heater appears not to be working, Is there a method of testing it to check its opperation

 

Thanks

[MrT]

What makes you think you have one fitted?

[Guest oneill]

I have removed the o/s quarter trim and seen it. It however makes no attempt to work. Have tried a multitude of configs with the controls (climate) but alas it refuses to budge.. any clues

[HJT]

The auxillary heater is only available on the diesel. Not sure what you can see but it's not a heater. It's possibly the evaporator and fan for the dual aircon.

 

Howard

[Guest oneill]

Hi

With the trim removed i can see/touch the heater pipes that run underneath the car that feed the heater on the rear passenger side, they both get hot. On stripping the rear heater i can see/touch the heater matrix that also gets hot. The elec connections are all ok. as is the opperation of the fan unit. I have tested the servo motor that controls the flaps inside the heater and again this works ok .It seems not to be recieving any signal from the climate control unit in the dash. Have checked all suitable fuses.

[Guest nimrod]

I think there is a bit of confusion here on what the aux heater and the rear cabin heater are, the aux heater is a bit of kit that TDI's have mounted under the rear of the car linked into the heater pipes, its sole purpose apart from from being the subject of plenty of topics on here :ph34r: is to boost the heat of the coolant for heating puposes due the lack of it provided by the engine!

the rear cabin heater is a seperate heater mounted in the rear passenger quarter panel on manual controled heaters aircon systems its operated by a switch on the dash and a couple of rotary switches on the roof above the rear passenger door,

on CC with rear air con systems its operated by the CC panel, the buttons that control the rear heater are the four on the rhd side of the unit next to the ECON button, the dsplay above these buttons show what setting are in operation

[Guest nimrod]

The auxillary heater is only available on the diesel. Not sure what you can see but it's not a heater. It's possibly the evaporator and fan for the dual aircon.

 

Howard

Howard on a couple of years the 2.8 VR6 did have the aux heater fitted! IIRC there is a member of the forum with a 2.8 with it fitted! and it was playing up! now thats unusual! :ph34r:

[Guest oneill]

Thanks for the clarification

 

Car is in the local Ford Dealership as we speak. they cant get it to work either.

 

There are no controls in the roof, It is, though, a rather early model - "P" - if this makes a difference to the controls, but it is a mystery as to why it wont work.

 

Thanks again for your help..

[HJT]

Nimrod

What did it run on? Surely not petrol :D . That would sound like an inferno waiting to happen :ph34r:

 

Howard

[Guest nimrod]

yep petrol, you can get them to fit most cars. I'm toying with the idea of getting one fitted to my 2.8 :ph34r: I did ask if they convert it to run on LPG but the guy wasnt to sure if it could be done!

try http://www.vehvac.com/ for more info on aftermarket aux heaters

[MrT]

Very unusual if it is the auxilliary heater on a 2.8 which is why I queried why you thought you had it. There was certainly not one on my previous 1997 2.8i Galaxy Ghia-X.

 

Another point that might be preaching the obvious, but is it not to hot where you are at the moment for the heater to come on? I understand that it only comes on at low temperatures.

[Guest nimrod]

YEP I knew there's a 2.8 owner with it fitted as standard! DaveM's 2.8 v6 with aux heater

[rwtomkins]

I suspect MrT's right. I have an aux heater - correctly named a booster heater, if I recall - and you would certainly not expect it to kick in at this time of year unless you live somewhere very cold indeed. As far as I know there's absolutely no way of manually overriding it to try and force it into operation, so the only way you'll know whether it works or not is to wait until the winter.

[HJT]

yep petrol, you can get them to fit most cars. I'm toying with the idea of getting one fitted to my 2.8 :o I did ask if they convert it to run on LPG but the guy wasnt to sure if it could be done!

try http://www.vehvac.com/ for more info on aftermarket aux heaters

You're a braver man than I, that sounds scary :lol: I like the look of their auto clutch perfect for those lazy bank holidays stuck in a stop/start traffic jam :D

 

Howard

[Guest nimrod]

As far as I know there's absolutely no way of manually overriding it to try and force it into operation..............

From what I can gather this guy has found a way of manually operating the aux heater

http://www.pantoulier.de/Galaxy/index.html

[rwtomkins]

For the benefit of us non-German speakers, nimrod, what did he do? Stick the vehicle in a giant fridge??

[Guest nimrod]

Sorry! try reading the site via http://world.altavista.com/ you get the general idea of what he did

[rwtomkins]

For the benefit of those who can't be bothered to do the translation, it seems he rigged up a new circuit that enabled him to override the ambient temperature sensor with a rocker switch that he installed in the instrument panel. Nice trick if you can pull it off...

[Jaroth]

I'm not certain....but I'm fairly sure from the replies that the heater is made by Eberspacher....it can come in petrol or diesel form...and the good bit is.....they have a memory unit fitted.If they fail to start for any reason 5 times...they are locked out until reset

[NikpV]

If they fail to start for any reason 5 times...they are locked out until reset

 

 

will depend on the reason - certainly glowplug o/c errors do not need resetting before it will restart - AFAIK its the ecu which locks the unit out under some circumstances :rolleyes:

[Jaroth]

I'm an Eberspacher service engineer...I can say with some certainty thet any reason will result in a lockout if it causes a fail start

[NikpV]

I'm an Eberspacher service engineer...I can say with some certainty thet any reason will result in a lockout if it causes a fail start

 

 

 

interesting - I wonder what make my heater is then?? was told i had the glowplug o/c dtc by fords and one whole winter later (without it firing up) - changed the glowplug and the following morning away it went :rolleyes: :angry2:

[Jaroth]

That's because it didn't cause a fail start,if the glow isn't working the heater won't even try to start...it does a set of pre start checks,and if everything is ok...then it will try to fire up...if it detects any faults at all it won't even try...........however the fault will remain in the memory

[NikpV]

If they fail to start for any reason 5 times...they are locked out until reset

 

 

That's because it didn't cause a fail start,if the glow isn't working the heater won't even try to start...it does a set of pre start checks,and if everything is ok...then it will try to fire up...if it detects any faults at all it won't even try...........however the fault will remain in the memory

 

 

reassuring - how is the reset communicated to the heater - this may be useful - it would save having a vag-com to communicate with the ecu etc :rolleyes: :angry2:

 

 

ps for our edification what other pre start checks will result in a non start (and so will not cause a lock out) and what faults will cause a lock-out (assuming flame out and overheating would be two of these)

 

Another poster here is getting an overtemperature warning logged as a DTC can you tell us which of the two temp sensors this is (IIRC he is also getting a message saying one is faultyagain ) we couldn't work out which of the two sensors is responsible for these apparently the heater is working ok

[Jaroth]

The sensor that gives an overtemp fault is a positive temperature coeficient resistor,if it starts to break down it will give faulty readingsIt also has a lower warning range and an upper cutout range,so it may just be warning that it is approaching overheat.To reset I will have to know exactly which model it is...it can be done with a piece of wire...but it will only remove the last fault code,which will let you start it but 1 fault will stop it again...if you have the diagnostic meter you can completely clear the memory.

The non starts are

1 Fuel metering pump open circuit

2 glow plug open circuit

3 flame sensor open circuit

4 fan speed error

5 temp sensor open circuit

 

The problem with the failed starts is that the unit doesn't actually know why it hasn't started.....so even if there is no fuel,the unit can't tell and after 5 goes decides that it isn't safe to try again......the inline fuel filter is very fine and easily blocks...this causes the the unit to "sputter"and eventually stop.