Landrover 90 heater issue

[born2trot]

I have an issue with my '08 90 defender heater which basically is burning my left outside leg just below the knee. Switching to windows only is less bad but its still there. Before I start stripping things out I would like to know if this is a common problem of which there is a simple fix or is this unusual because I think it should blow the hot air down into the footwell ?

 

P.S nothing wrong heat wise with heater, its blows very hot. thanks...

[pie eater pete]

Christ id be happy if mine burnt me! I get more warmth out of the dog breathin on me!

[fergusonforestry]

must have saved all the heat out of the others and put it in yours

 

mebe try this in reverse?

I saw the other land thread and noticed a few people complaining about the heaters.... landy heaters can blow hot air but may need adjusting to do so..

 

When I bought my old land rover the guy told me the heater didn't work, but as I had stripped it right down to re-furb it I had the heater off any way. I put it all back together and it did work but was only luke warm....

Which it appears most land rover heaters are right???

 

Well try this: open the bonnet and have someone operate the hot / cold lever in the cab while you watch the levers move on top of the heater unit. Make a note of the max cold and max hot positions on the heater unit, then with the cab lever at max hot check the lever on the unit, there will most likely be some extra travel, this is where the hot air is!, re-adjust the linkage so that max hot in the cab gives max hot on the heater, this is a bit fiddly but worth the effort. you now should be getting proper hot air.

[_tc]

I have an issue with my '08 90 defender heater which basically is burning my left outside leg just below the knee. Switching to windows only is less bad but its still there. Before I start stripping things out I would like to know if this is a common problem of which there is a simple fix or is this unusual because I think it should blow the hot air down into the footwell ?

 

P.S nothing wrong heat wise with heater, its blows very hot. thanks...

 

I had one of the new ones and yes I believe they all do this but also seem to think there is a dealer fix so worth giving them a call perhaps.

[rovers90]

None of the Defenders I ever owned put out anything resembling heat! I was thinking of suing Land Rover under the trade descriptions for calling it a heater - air circulation fan would have been more appropiate!!

[Treewolf]

I have an issue with my '08 90 defender heater which basically is burning my left outside leg just below the knee. Switching to windows only is less bad but its still there. Before I start stripping things out I would like to know if this is a common problem of which there is a simple fix or is this unusual because I think it should blow the hot air down into the footwell ?

 

P.S nothing wrong heat wise with heater, its blows very hot. thanks...

 

This is totally normal on a Puma Defender.

 

With the heater set to 'demist', air comes out of the footwell vents and the demister nozzles. Set it to 'footwell and demist', the only difference is that even more air comes out of the footwell nozzles.

 

Also, you will find that the heater is either cold or scorching - there is no in-between. if you do manage to get something in-between, the air temp will fluctuate between cold and scorching according to what the engine is doing! Unless the heater is set to cold, you will also find that the passenger's side (LHS) is always hotter than the driver's side (RHS).

 

The only solution I have found is to stuff a rag up the footwell outlet.

 

This is a well-known problem which has been dicsussed at length on various Landrover forums. The root causes are firstly that the engine temp does vary a lot due to the design of the engine, and more significantly the water enters the heater matrix at the LHS of the matrix. On a low heat setting, the water has cooled by the time it gets to the right of the matrix so the temperature of the matrix on the left is much higher than it is on the right, with the inevitable result that air coming out on the left is much hotter than air coming out on the right.

 

There are people who have extended the footwell outlets so that they actually discharge towards the feet, rather than towards the calf. You will probably also have noticed that it is easy to make the handbrake too hot to touch.

 

Realistically there is probably nothing that can be done (other than the rag technique) until someone starts making a better designed after-market heater. Until then, enjoy the novelty of a Landrover heater which actually warms/cooks the driver.

[born2trot]

Thankyou for all the replies.

I will definitely try the dealer to see if there is an after market fix, nothing to lose.

' Treewolf ' you have described the problem to a tee, very frustrating to actually have a land rover that blows hot air but my feet were still frozen!

Will see if i can rig up some sort of air deflector, failing that will try the rag.

Thanks again everyone.

[porky]

So they redesigned all the cab fascia to improve the heating and end up boiling their customers instead!

And I was looking forward to trading up to a Puma...