how hard is it to change out the heater coil in a 5th gen dx? when i bought the car over the summer i never really checked to see if the heat worked.. turns out it doesn't and i figure the heater coil is hosed. any other simple solutions other than the heater coil being shot you guys can think of? TIA

 

Does your temp gage come up when the car warms up? If not it could be a bad thermostat.

If it does and you get no heat out of it, you may also want to look under the hood, there is a small valve that is controled via cable from the heater control. If that has broken, or come off the valve, it could render the valve unmoveable and not give you any heat. The heater core, from what I remember is a PITA to change. I believe you have to take the ENTIRE dash out to replace it.

 

if the heater core goes bad it leaks.
if youre simply not getting heat it's one of the things that Hondaman mentioned.

 

the temp guage comes up normally as the car warms up. where is this valve you speak of under the hood?

 

It should be near the fire wall inline with one of the heater hoses right before it goes through the fire wall.

 

awesome.. i'll take a look on my lunch break

 

did yo figure it out???

 

i found the valve and played with it a bit. seems like the cable isn't attached to the heater controls. i did move it to the on and off position for about 5-10 minutes each while the car was idling at operating temp and still no heat. any more ideas guys?

 

also, the coolant hose going into the valve is only a little warm to the touch when the car is at operating temp. shouldn't the liquid going into the heater coil be a little hotter at operating temp?

 

hows your coolant level? does the temp gauge get up to normal while idling like that? you may have a bad thermostat or simply low on coolant.