No heating on Rover diesel

[Gef]

S reg Rover 400 2 litre turbo diesel. Fan doesn't work and there is no heating. Also temp guage is erratic. Seems normal when accelerating but just drop off the bottom of the scale when cruising. Any tips before I go to a garage?

[madman06]

rovers are prone for the thermostats being dodgey,was told by a rover dealer he could sell me 10 and id be lucky to get a good 1,as for no heating sounds like the heater switch in car is naff ,not safest thing to do but take switch out and try a piece of wire in it and see if that works ,fan should come on if fuse hasent blown.

[mattoc66]

It might be your water pump (very expensive to replace).. I would get it checked at a garage ASAP

[Andy Boz]

Water pump. If the car is left to warm up, and the needle on temparature gauge gets up into the hot bit, then switch the fan on hot, and you should get a trickle of heat out for a while, then it will go cold. If this is the case I would suggest pump.
Any decent mechanic should be able to change it.

[Andy Boz]

Forget what madman said about switch, good recipe for burned fingers!

[Slippery]

I think you should try a thermostat first. They are a common problem with the L-series diesels. It think the t'stat is different whether you have A/con or not. Does the heater fan work at all? 1 and 2 normally fail but 3 and 4 on the fan switch probably still work. If so, it's the heater fan resistor pack. You have to drop the glovebox lid down and it's held in to the heater fan unit with 2 screws and has a connector. The ceramic coating burns off. they are about �30. It's the same as a '95>'99 5dr Honda Civic one as they are basically the same car.

[Gef]

Many thanks for the answers especially Slippery. At least I have some extra info when I go to the garage.

[Slippery]

Hope it helps!