L322 BMW V8 with a broken heater - help!

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TristanJudge

New Member
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We have a problem which is proving very difficult to solve and I wonder if anyone else has experienced this and could help:


Vehicle is an L322 V8 (BMW) petrol on a 54 plate. And the problem is that the heater (mostly) does not work.


Car is with an independent Land Rover specialist who has lots of experience with the L322 generally but this has so far stumped him. Recently a new radiator was fitted, by this specialist, and we believe that the heater was OK before but cannot verify due to a change of ownership.


The cooling system has been bled loads of times, the coolant level stays good, there are absolutely no overheating problems and no bubbles in the expansion tank. Work tried so far with nothing untoward found: exchanged all of the 5? heater valves (both on the rear of the engine and the inner wing) for good ones, exchanged the thermostat, checked engine temperature, checked all fault codes (none found), reverse flowed and flushed new rad. When in the workshop and left to heat up, the heater occasionally starts working and pumps out loads of heat, but every time, next morning, the problem returns. Once for instance the pipe from the heater valves going to the scuttle was found to be very hot at one point, but stone cold just two inches further up, hose was then removed and rodded etc but no change. Peculiar. Interior fan on auto does all the speed changes you would expect from a cold start – just absolutely no heat comes forth.


This has stumped by specialist and all those at the main dealer he knows.


Anybody experienced this before? I can’t help feeling the rad change is more than a coincidence but cannot think of other things to check. It feels as though there is a flap/valve/blockage damming teh flow of hot water. Obviously we are loath to access the heater matrix unless we absolutely have to...!


Any useful comments or suggestions welcomed.
 
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