My car is leaking fluid from the heater core, what is best way to stop it? 10 points best asnwer?
- i dont want to hear "go to a mechanic," i dont have that kind of money to spend just for the guy to look at it
- its leaking under my passenger seat and i was wondering if stop leak would work
6 Responses
mycle1000
12 Feb 2010
John C
12 Feb 2010
If you are sure it is your heater core here is what to do. This is for most cars (Im not sure what you a driving). Heater cores are pains to change, expecially if you have never done one. You have to, in most cars, remove most of the dash. If it is a full size ford have fun with that (they are real hard). Some of a few older vehicles you have to take front right tire off the car and access the heater core that way. If you are not good with working on cars don’t do it yourself. I don’t know why people are telling you it is easy. You run into air vent tubes, radio and temp control removal, some cars spedo panel removal, some cars speaker removal, You can easily cause a short in many of the wires or a rip in some of the vacuum lines under the dash. Only some of the older vehicles like the 1970 chevys or ford trucks were a little easier.
You can bypass your heater core. Look under your hood at the firewall. On most cars you will see two hoses about a inch in diameter that go into the firewall (in the center or more on the passenger side) The two hoses shouldn’t be no more apart than about an inch from each other. The parts store should have a bypass insert to stick into both of the hoses once you pull them off the firewall/heater core. This will be fine for the rest of the time you have the vehicle, you just will not have any heat. hope this helps.
Don’t use stop leak, just bypass it.
jasondee
12 Feb 2010
Bypass the heater core until you get a new one. Then replace it. There are no easy fixes. No stop leak wont help.
clutch
12 Feb 2010
Stop leak is only a temporary repair and will start leaking again. A heater core is not that expensive and easy to replace on most cars.
Broke_Daddy
12 Feb 2010
Are you sure it’s the heater core and not the condensate tube from the A/C?
Most times I’ve seen a heater core leak it caused condensation on the inner windshield.
Most heater cores are not that difficult or expensive, however, you could always try to bypass it by connecting the heater hoses together instead of to the core. Not a good idea to leave it that way.
joanthan
11 Mar 2010
my car is over heating blows out cold air,makes a rattling noise and leaking what is it
if it is really antifreeze, try ‘bars leak’ or some other additive. in a worst case situation there is always the old timers fix of using coarse ground black pepper to plug a leak in the heater core or radiator. the bypass method will get you by until you can replace the core. simply hook the ‘in’ hose to the ‘out’ hose-of course you will not have heater/defroster use.