No heat

[ajaxoftherockies]

Hi,
My wife's X5 has stopped heating the cabin (which is poorly timed with minus 10 degrees last night)
Anyway, she says that the fan only runs fast on defrost. she says turning the regular fan speed control up half way, there is only slight air movement and the air is barely warm.
Would this be the Final Stage Resistor I've read about? Also, would that prevent air warming?

THX!

- a -

[X5rolls]

Thermostat might need to be tested - cheap enough anyway, by the time you try to take it out you might as well replace it with a new one. Check the top radiator hose after warm up. Should be getting harder and warm/hot as it fills with water circulating through the system. If it doesnt, the thermostat might be stuck. If it sticks, just replace it.

[amacman]

the heater control valves , usually under hood on left inner wing can fail to open , don`t know how to test them , just another possible cause .

[ajaxoftherockies]

Thanks guys. I'll check these two when she gets home tonight. (even though it'll be around zero. the things we do for love...)

[wallyx5]

Also check the fluid level in the radiator. If it's low from a slow leak, you will stop getting heat.

[ajaxoftherockies]

checked it out tonight (3 degrees outside), and I can get heat. wife says she has to turn the fan control up much higher than she used to for air flow.
I drove it a few days ago and noticed that the temp gauge pegged hot suddenly after about 10 minutes of freeway driving. I figured there was something wrong with it as the car had no other symptoms of that kind of overheating.
Tonight, however, the temp gauge stayed in normal range (just revving the engine in the driveway to warm it up) and I could heat the inside, but it seemed like the hot air should be a lot hotter. Granted it's pretty friggin' cold outside, but shouldn't a fully warmed 6cyl be able to make like a blast furnace inside the cabin even in single digit temps? I had the air set to recirculate for what that's worth.

What do you think?

[erisol]

Blow air in to the ribed area beside the display for climacontr. to clean out dust.This is where one of the temp.sensores are. My inside temp was acting strange( had to put the degres way up to get normal temp. inside) After cleaning whit kompresed air all is good.
It shuld be more of this sensors do to dubble klima, anyone know the location of this?

[m5james]

Suddenly pegged hot, meaning finally reached the middle or went fully to the right in the overheat range? The thermostats in these are electronically controlled, so if it never reaches temperature after sitting and idling for a while, the thermostat may have failed in the open position. Unlock your OBC (search www.e38.org) and report what the temps are when the needle (if it does) reaches the middle.

My winter truck (90 S10 Blazer 4x4) has only been getting to 1/4 on the gauge, but it doesn't help that we're hitting subzero temps in the evenings and single digit +'s in the day time. I'm half tempted to do the diesel trick of covering the radiator w/ a piece of cardboard so the outside temps don't cool the truck off too much, preventing it from never reaching operating temperature due to the colder than normal air flowing through the radiator/engine bay.