General Panda Heater Upgrade ?

[Tom M]

Hi,

New member here just wondered if anybody has come across a workable modification to upgrade the appalingly poor heater in pandas?

Mine is a L reg Selecta 1106cc job which is a whizzer off the line at the trafic lights, but being up in the Aberdeen area I find the heater just can't cut it.

The poor seating I can fix, I've a pair of Impretza ones that should go in just fine, but the heater drives me nuts.

Any suggestions?

Tom

 

[Martiny10]

Hi there,

I have a small fan heater that I plug into the cigarette lighter on icy mornings. I let it run for a bit to clear the windows.

I think I got it from Woolworths.

I stay in the South of Scotland - not as bad as Aberdeen I admit, but when the car is warmed up I find that the heater is pretty good.

Is the coolant level OK and/or the the small valve beteween radiator and cabin heater switched off/partially closed?

Regards,

Martin

Fix It Again Tony!

 

[John H]

I think there are a number of issues with the heater in the Panda:

it doesn't get too cold in most of Italy, so the heater isn't great by northern standards (try the heater on a car built for north/central Europe: IME Volvo, Skoda, they feel like you could burn your hand if you kept it in the air - cooling fan doesn't come in until 105 degrees or more.)

the Panda engine runs quite cool (by modern standards) even when the cooling fan has tripped in it's still likely to be only 95 degrees.

my panda heater only really starts to do anything useful when the engine is really warmed up - anything less than 85 degrees on the gauge and it's barely warm at the ducting on a frosty morning... so that's in excess of 5 miles in urban running.

Don't know what the answer is, as I wouldn't want to run a FIRE too hot

 

[toecutter]

Um...When I first got my Panda I was surprised how bad the heater was; barely luke warm, but then I noticed that the engine didn't come up to, or stay at operating temperature. Solution= change the thermostat. You, by chance, don't have the same problem?

Also, the lever can come off the heat selector...

Justin

 

[Martiny10]

Hi there,

Meant to add that leaves, feathers and other junk can get into the vents and block them. It's a tedious job but you may want to consider clearing the vents out. That can signifigantly increase airflow but won't affect temperature.

You should be able to get hot air - short of getting a thermometer out it is hard to quantify but John is right, the fan cuts in at 95 so it will be (a lot) less than that. However, should be hot enough for de- icing purposes.

When it comes to clearing ice, my heater can clear all the front windows in about 5 mins. That's a lot longer than my folks Clio but that car is a lot newer - it's not comparing like with like.

I find that lot - people moan about rusty FIATS, poor electrics etc but when you look at it they are not comparing like with like. How many rust free Renault 5's have you seen? Or VW Golfs? Last week I saw a rusty L reg Volvo - so much for Scandic invulnerability. I might as well criticise the brakes for not having ABS.

Anyway, my point is that the heater is not going to compete with a Clio or a Corsa etc but it should provide 'adequate' performance - it is 8 years old after all and based on a design going back to the 80's.


After 10mins I throttle back on the heating as the car is pretty hot. If your car is taking longer than that check out the airflow and coolant level. Or buy a portable heater.

Regards,

Martin

Fix It Again Tony!

 

[Enzo]

I know the Panda heater for its "funny" behaviour...in fact during the winter and driving fast enough I feel a reduction of the vents air temperature, which I think is due to an overcooling even if the thermostat is new[^]!On the opposite side, mind here during the summer the temp exceeds 35°C[:0], if the car is stuck in the traffic and then restarts, even if you don't want heat, hot air comes in from the vents, that need to be closed[xx(] if you don't want a sauna:I!Don't know if the temp_ control can't stop the hot water to circulate in the heater matrix or the heat from the engine transfers to the cabin.


Do I turn fast enough!?

 

[Nacho]

I agree with you Enzo. On mine the hot air seems to blow out of vents more now that it is summer then it did in the winter. Also the driver window vent blows five times more air out then the one on the passenger side.
Nacho

 

[Tom M]

Thanks all for the suggestions -Wow! I didn't expect so many.

In Summer the heater is quite effective and before I checked out the valve and ducts I did suffer the Summer sauna effect.

I have replaced the thermostat, cleaned the cooling system with de-sludging agent, checked the control valve and made sure the heater circuit is fully primed, but still the heater is lacking.
There was a slight improvement with the thermostat and did notice the low running temperature must account to a fair degree for the problem.
It sounds like you all have given this one a fair bit of thought having suffered the same problem in greater or lesser degrees.
If I can find a 105 degC thermostat that will fit I might give it a try. John you seem to have some reservations as to the FIRE's ability to withstand stress? - my son tried really hard to destroy a Punto's FIRE engine but it hung it out even under the extremes of performance only youth can extract.

Recently I had a hell of a problem finding an electrical fault that prevented drive engaging although the beastie did start ok. This turned out to be due to the igniion switch auxilliary contact -( traced through the fact the fuel gauge didn't register).
Anyhow, this has led me to haul out the other most naff feature the plastic/ fabric parcel shelf (hope I'm not offending any Panda Purists here) .
So to expand my story, given that the naff seats and the shelf are going to get it I'm thinking of finding a much larger heater at the local scrappie and doing a bit of tin work to cover it all up.

When I get around to it that is amongst the various projects - sidecar outfit, bikes, kids, etc - When I do i'll come back and let you know how I got on.

Kind regards to all,

Tom

 

[John H]

Yes, I do have doubts about that engines cylinder head coping with high temperatures... If it would, FIAT would run it hotter as the efficiency is better with a hot engine.

My Panda (still waiting for the time to do the head gasket..) will loose no oil or coolant until it has got a bit hot in stationary traffic and the fan has tripped in a few times.
It will then loose quite a lot after it has cooled down for over an hour or two.

After short, or cooler, runs it doesn't loose anything.

IMHO there must be an issue with any or all of the following:
alloy head,
stretch bolts,
gasket design/quality,
or the robotic assembly of the engine.

 

[Martiny10]

If you have a FIRE 999cc based car this may be of interest – I noticed on the part CD that Y10’s shipped to Scandinavia, Switzerland and a few other cold countries have a different Heater element compared with the standard one. The UK is not mentioned so I guess this country got the ‘standard’ heater.

The part no is 7757962 if you want to check it out it’s FIAT compatibility, but it costs £170. The ‘shared parts’ option states that it is Y10 specific - I would guess this means that it would bolt onto the engine, after all it is the same engine, but the feed into the cabin will need work.

Actually, a look at my FIAT CD shows considerable differences between the heating arrangements for the panda and Y10 so this work would be considerable.

The ‘standard’ one is I believe 7755126 for the Y10, again Y10 only. The same part is used on the 1.1 SPI Y10’s too, but I have never seen one and can’t comment as to it’s compatibility with a 1.1 Panda Selecta.

If you are seriously considering replacing the heater this may be an option, but since it would have to be ordered from the dealer in advance, and at great cost and with no guarantee of fitting it is more for interest!

This is probably the first time I have found an ‘under the hood’ difference between Y10 and Panda – I guess you can ignore my previous comments about its performance! Clearly the superior car has a superior heater!


Fix It Again Tony!

 

[Jaff_Fox]

I know this topic is a little old but i can say with confidence i'm a panda heater expert ;p Has anyone noticed that the control on the dash does not really do anything? when i got my panda the heater did not work at all.. then i fixed it but it was always on.. today i finally fitted a radiator valve to bypass the crummy plastic fiat one, i can't believe it, the heater actually goes cold and hot now with the control on the dash! such luxury!