This is the first Minnesota winter I have had this 2005 LR3, V8. The heat is not as warm and consistent as I would have expected.

When the system is working correctly is the car cozy and warm, such that you turn the auto climate control to 76 and then the cabin is 76 degrees?

My engine temperature gauge takes about ten minutes of driving to have the gauge stay in the middle of the engine temperature range. The engine temperature does not fluctuate much once the motor gets warm.

I do not notice a difference between the passenger and driver side heat vents.

I have been smelling a dusty sort of smell when I use the heater, is this a sign of a bad heater core?

The blower fan seems to work fine as well.

I cleaned the cabin temperature gauge as well.

Any ideas what to check next?

Thanks

191,000 miles.

Christian

 

Dusty smell? Have you changed the cabin filter? Its possible the core box drains got plugged from AC condensation, that can cause the heater core, which is lower in the box, to get flooded. Over time that could coat the core with debris. But that would take some pretty extreme flooding over a long time I would think.

I would, for starters, check both sides again temperature-wise. The core is always flowing with engine coolant, even in summer when the AC is on. But the design is poor, both the inlet and outlet are on the passenger side, the result is debris tends to settle on the driver side and slowly build up, especially if the cooling system has been abused (infrequent coolant changes, wrong coolant, etc). The result is the driver side is cooler than the passenger side and it gets slowly worse.

You could also have air in the system, the engine temp should not move at all really but you indicated it does fluctuate even if not much. It should be steady, just very slightly below middle.

As for temp control, I tend to regulate mine manually. I found that it gets up to temp well but I dont feel the system is well automated when it comes to temperatures. I can set it to 72 but find that later I need to bump it up to 80, then maybe back down again. Nothing like the truly automatic system my Mercedes had.

 

Thanks for all the great information. I have changed the cabin filter. The car sat for a few years before I bought it. I had to clean the AC drains several times this past year of driving. If the AC drains needed several cleanings, do you think debris could be on the core then too? How might I check or clean the core?

The temperatures are the same on driver and passenger vents.

How do I purge air from the system?

The poor auto climate control performance is what I was guessing too. My saab's or volvo's were always set and forget, it seems the Landy needs more interaction. Do you keep the fan on auto or do you also control the fan speed as well as adjust temperature manually?

Thanks!
Christian

 

If the core is badly clogged by exterior debris, you should notice a drop in air flow when switching to heat. But if it sat for years its also possible the entire core is just bad and needs replacement.