Bought Multijet 16 v 56 plate with 45,000 miles.

On drive home uphill with engine temp bang in middle accelerated and temperature gauge soared with warning light and waring to switch off.

Was surprised and slowed down and warnings ceased and temperature returned to normal.

Today again uphill and had same warning. Tried to run heater at max to cool. This had no impact as heater on full setting blew cold.

Stopped water level normal and restarted and when temperature crept up backed off and it returned to normal.

Pulls strongly and heater when constantly checking blows weakly hot. Less hot on full rather than 1/2 fan. Would vary between hot and cold but mainly cold.

At age the car should have had a cambelt but don't think this was done. Am considering one but main issue is temperature warning and lack/varying hot air.

Any suggestions.

Thermostat might be stuck closed.

Internet research suggests this and have had a look trying to identify the heater pipes to bleed the system but can't identify.
If anyone has a photo good description I would be most grateful.

Searching Forum can be scary but no mayonaisse inside filler cap and coolant looks quite recent a nice strong healthy blue.

Would like to bleed before going to garage.

Given the title of the thread, someone has suggested the water pump as a culprit and I think that sounds quite likely, though I'm not familiar with that particular engine.

Bleeding the system should be unnecessary as long as the expansion tank (the filling point) is the highest point in the system. It is on my Abarth, and having changed the coolant twice (due to a new thermostat and then a split hose), I haven't had to bleed the system.

-Alex

It turned out to be a water pump and even though it fails it doesn't jack knife like a VW which melts the cam belt. You can guess the rest. Belts etc changed service heating working and engine pulling strongly. All well to the next heart ache