The heater in my car does not blow much hot air. What could be wrong?

Q: The heater in my car does not blow much hot air. What could be wrong?

A: Not getting enough heat from your vehicle heater can be due to two problems:  either the heater is not producing enough heat, or the fan is not moving the heat the heater is producing.

The heater uses hot engine coolant to generate hot air from a small radiator inside the HVAC housing called a heater core. If the coolant is not hot enough or the hot coolant can not circulate through the heater core, the air from the HVAC system will not get hot enough.

The other possibility is that the HVAC fan is not producing the volume of air needed to move the heat from the heater core through the air ducts to the windows. This can be an electrical issue, a fan problem, or a fan control problem.

Heater diagnosis usually starts with a computer scan check for the correct engine temperature or heater-related error codes. If there are no reported error codes, the technician uses the reported symptoms and physically investigates and tests to find the problem.

If you have questions about cooling system issues, talk to our service advisors at 734-913-6272, or visit our Cooling System Repair page for more information.