Heater Problem

[stromip]

Hi, was wondering if anyone can help me? I have a 96 lumina v6 and the heater is not putting out hot air. The fan works fine and every now and then the heat will come on but for the most part it just blows out cold air. I'm a single female and I hate taking my car to a shop without some idea of what is wrong first because I sometimes get ripped off. so even if i can't fix it myself (I tried changing the fuse) I would appreciate any information that I could get. Thanks!

[cadgear]

Hm. Two things come to mind if the blower blows and the fuses are good.

1) Heater core could be clogged internally. The heater core acts like a mini-radiator, using hot engine coolant to warm air before it's blown around the ducts. Dunno what the labor time for that kinda job is, but it might be a bit high.

2) Temperature mixer doors. The standard one-knob system (one knob for temp, one for blower, one for mode) uses a single flap to dictate how much air should flow over the heater core/AC evaporator. In the full cold, all the air flows over the AC evap. In full hot, all the air flows over the heater core. The little flap's motor can go out, leaving you without control over which core the air flows over. Labor time on this would be less than a heater core, I'm fairly sure.

If you want to try to tackle these yourself, some SI documents can be forwarded your way, but I hate doing them, so I'd just as soon take mine to a shop and let them handle it.