Experiencing a couple odd things with my 09 RA;

*Blowing cold air ...
If I am at a stop light, heat is on full temp and full fan speed, it will blow cold air until my car is in motion.
I realize where I live, it gets ridiculously cold out, but I have never experienced this in previous vehicles even in my 86 VW Jetta

*Not shifting gears properly
This has happened a couple times in the last couple of weeks.
While in drive with the normal setting on a couple times in the last couple weeks when driving my car will rev as high as possible and will not shift. When I flick it over to manual give the shifter a click then flick it back over to 'drive' it will then continue to shift normally. The issue here, is that I can't just produce the issue because it is inconsistent.

Can anyone shed some light on these issues?

TIA

 

For the cold air issue, I'd have the coolant system checked for an air lock (an air bubble in one of the coolant passages). We've seen a couple of them here. The expansion and contraction of the air bubble due to heat will create intermittent problems with the heating, and because the air is displacing coolant, your reservoir will appear full.

The shifting issue is something else, however. We'll need more info. Does it happen only when its very cold out? Has the engine reached its normal temp when it happens? Did you get any service message on the info display?

 

one thing to not is it is very slugging/slow to shift when the transmission is cold. Also, if the engine is not up to temp the air will not be warm. The heating in this car is totally dependent on the temperature of the coolant. your vw probably had an electric heater in it which is why it was able to warm the passenger compartment quicker...

 

Yes it does happen with it is very cold out and no the car is not up to normal temp when happening. There are no messages on the display

 

how many miles on your car?

 

It's in kms, and it has 56,xxx kms

 

Let er warm up first and your shifting issue should disappear

 

Also if to little coolant you will not get any heat

 

negative. they just have a small heater core

 

a t-stat suck open, plugged heater core, bad water pump, and air bubbles can all cause heating issues.

 

With cold air temps the auto wont shift from 1~2 or 3 ~4 due to the programming. That's why its revs high. Check out the manual its in there.

 

Sweet!!! Thanks for the info ... I was hoping that was what it was related to, thanks for clearing that up

 

Have you done a tranny fluid flush yet?

 

Yes, it was done at around 40,000 kms

 

I've noticed the cold air thing too. When the temp is into the teens the heater will blow much cooler air at idle, especially with the fan on high. If you lower the fan speed the air blows warm. Also if you blip the throttle the air will blow warm.

My theory is that a small heater core combined with slow water pump speed at idle (for mpg) can't keep enough heat in the core.