HI everyone. I have a soggy footwell, which is definitely of the anti-freeze type (rather blue!) and when I have heaters on, they are not demisting, just spewing out nasty greasy oily stuff, and it smells. Pipes all seem OK. Could it be the heater matrix?? Or just a leaky radiator??

I did only just replace the cylinder head gasket, belts, air and oil filter 2 weeks ago, and have done about 600 miles since....so did I kill something in the process? As I said, pipes all seem OK, no obvious leak.

I have bought some radweld as reccommended by someone....should I use??

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Fiat Punto 1.1 55S M reg for those interested

Cheers! Bec xx

Burst Heater Matrix mate.

Liam

Wahh. So...is it ok if I drive it short distances as long as I keep water topped up, or big no no....cos I work and can only fix at the weekend. I olny need to use it twice this week though.

Cheers

Bec xx

Keeping the water topped up is paramount, it should be ok till the weekend but someone with more experience of this problem should post before you go stripping parts off.

Could be expensive.

Liam

deffinatly sounds like blown heater matrix it is very common for them to fail after a head gasket failure. there have been lots of peole with same problem as you on here recently. before you go replacing the matrix its a lot of work from what i gather try the radweld. lots of people have had great succes with barsleak/radwelld type products fixing small leaks in their heater matrix. just remember to follow instructions on bottle and make sure your heater is set to HOT so that it circualtes into teh matrix.

HI, thanks for the replies. I tried radweld last night, but unfortunately it does'nt seem to have solved the problem, still seems to be losing water, sogginess in footwell, more so.

I understand it is a big job to replace the heater matrix, but I can't afford to have it fixed somewhere, so it will be me doing it (boo hoo) . How long do you reckon it will take, any ideas? I have the haynes manual, and am getting a lot better at cars after doing cylinder head.

Cheers everyone!

Bec xx