So my car has been sitting for the past...well literally about 4 months and got her out yesterday and the heater isn't working. I obviously realize not driving her for 4 months wasn't the best thing, but I have been gone and simply wasn't around to drive it. Does anyone have ANYYYY ideas on why the HEAT wouldn't work...Thanks in advance! Everything else(for now) seems to be working in the same condition it was in...

 

Does the engine temp gauge come up to normal? If not, then the thermostat may be stuck open; preventing the engine from fully warming up and providing hot coolant to the heater core.

If the temp gauge does come up normally to midrange, then your air con blend door is probably stuck. That issue and how to address it have been covered multiple times in this board, and can be found with a search of the pertinent keywords.

 

The engine temp guage seems to be working just the way I remember it. Also, I don't believe I am getting heat out of any of my vents. When you say stuck, are you talking about a valve or cover? I found a couple things in other posts, one talking about a jammed heater valve and another referring to a DCCV valve or cover. Are either one of these what you are referring to. Thank you so much! I just want my baby back working again more than anything, but in the mean time I AM FREEZING!

 

This is actually a well know issue with several Jaguar models (I am not sure if your's is among them). Anyway, it is very possible your heater fan motor relay has burned out. It was a fairly quick and easy fix in my XK (about an hour at my local Jaguar dealer).

 

well any help on what the potential problem/part malfunction is, is greatly apprecaited! i'll be honest, i'm not a car person, but my neighbor builds them from the ground up. so, i usually just tell him what part/problem to look at and he'll go in there and take a look. so, any help with specifics on what i can tell him is a great help. thanks again everyone!

 

jmault, first off, when you turn on the heat, put it into manual mode and set the fan to the highest setting. Are you getting lots of air out of the dash in some place (doesn't matter where)? If yes, then we know the problem is not with the fan. If you are not getting any air flow, then your problem lies with the fan motor or the associated wiring. Let me know and I can get you going in the right direction.

Assuming you are getting lots of air flow, like was mentioned, the blend door is more than likely stuck in the cold position. The blend door is located inside the dash. Based on your description of not doing much work on the car yourself, this is definitely something beyond what you would probably tackle. But, if your neighbor is willing to take a look, he would need to remove the glove box and he will see 3 actuators on the side of the heating duct. If I remember right, the one that is in the middle (vertically) is the one that controls the hot/cold air. He can remove the actuator, then using a screw driver, manually operate the blend door and see if you can get heat that way.

Another check that you can do yourself. With the car parked, open the hood. WHile facing the car, you will see a opaque tank on your right side, just in front of the windshield. THis is your overflow tank for the engine cooling system. You should see the bottom part of the tank with either a green or orange fluid in it that goes pretty much up to the point where the opaque and black parts of the tank meet. If you don't see this coloring in the tank, then your problem is the fact that you are loosing coolant somewhere and you have only enough coolant inside the engine to keep the engine cool and none is getting to the heater core. If this is the case, then odds are you are suffering from a bad water pump. It is possible that your overflow bottle is cracked, but because it hasn't been driven, I would find that a little hard to believe to be the issue.

If you need more help, just hollar. Worst case, print this and show it to your neighbor. It will make a lot more sense to him.

 

I've seen blend doors "forget" their position, especially with weak batteries. Simple fix is to do a hard reset. when you restart the car don't touch the HVAC panel for about two minutes. All the flaps do a relearn at that time. Hopefully that helps.

 

thanks again guys, you're giving me some great places to start! i'll try the first little help thing on the way home this evening by not touching the hvac pannel for a few minutes; by hvac, is that the temperature control you're talking about, meaning don't turn on the heat(or air conditioning in this case)for a few minutes.

then when i get home, if that didn't work, i'll stop over by my neighbors and give him the printed out post from here so he can take a look at the other stuff. thanks again for the information. this forum has been spectacular, i've take so much stuff off here!

thanks again, please keep the information coming if you ca nthink of anything!

 

Yeah, the panel. First though, a hard reset is disconnecting the battery for a couple minutes. Then reconnect. Start the engine. You'll have to reset the windows. Pull up on all the switches (at the driver's door switchpack) one at a time until you hear a click each the respective door (about 5 seconds) Then reset the clock. When you have all that done you can probably fire up the Heater and see if that helps.

 

gotcha! ok, i'm going to try that! you guys are tremendous! thanks again! and by disconnecting battery, ovbiously meaning just removing the battery connection...

 

hard rest worked!!! heat againnnnnnnnnnnnn!!! ahhhhhhhhhh so niceeeeeeeee!!! thanks again for all the help...definitely saved me a trip to a shop and i am sureeeeee a decent amount of $$$.

Thannks!!!

 

Thank you gentlemen! It's amazing how little coolant you have to lose, to have a freezing cabin.