just yesterday my heat all of a sudden died on me and now that it's cold in the mornings makes it even worse. i've read through this entire thread already and everything looks fine except the valve doesn't move up or down when i change the temps. from hot to cold. i know the vacuum hose that goes to the VSV is connected to the intake manifold...maybe that check valve between the hose is clogged?

 

i remember reading that you can push the plunger up and hold manually, you should have heat... i did that, and nothing. any ideas?

 

For all you no heater having peoples.......

We knew way back at the start of club lexus if you weren't getting heat to top off the coolant FIRST. People would go look in and say "nope I see coolant in there and it looks about full" and they would never get their issue fixed because they didn't listed to people. There's at least 50 threads on no heat from 2003 alone and 80% were fixed by topping off the coolant. Before anyone gets into major mechanical BS always top off your coolant to the brim. That is step #1 no matter what, then move on to other issues.

Once it's pouring out topped off and you've taken a ride to normal operating temps (the system will purge itself out the overflow to proper levels) if you still have no heat, then move to the heater control switch at the firewall and rotate the actuator arm manually to fix your issue.

 

Hi OLT... Can you explain how is topping off the coolant affect the heater? I'm curious how it works. Lets say, the coolant level is on low but when you take the radiator cap off, it is clearly still full. I'm curious mechanically on how it works.... Just sayin' cos its pretty much common sense the first thing you check is the coolant level then go from there.

I think in my case, the valve is clogged as you can see and the coolant is having a hard time traveling through the heater core to produce heat inside. Since the valve is clogged on mine, I was thinking of bypassing it completely by putting an inline valve there commonly used on aquariums where u can open/close it to restrict the water line coming through. The downside is that yes, its going to be manual where you have to pop the hood and adjust it.

Like this


I think there are plastic ones like that typically used on fish tanks. I can probably leave it 25% open so that the coolant still circulates around the system.

Thanks.

 

Mine was not working either but that was due to the low coolant and a non working thermostat

 

ok i just had my bro. checked to see if the valve was moving up and down while i turn the temp. *** inside the car but it's not moving...i switched to a different vacuum port but not moving either..could the actuator valve be stucked?

 

Check the resistance on your "VSV" which I believe is the vacuum solenoid valve. It should be between 37-44 Ohms when the garage ambient temperature is 68 degrees. Mine for some reason was around 47 Ohms, but I don't care, all I know is that it works and the actuator moves on the heater valve when I move the temperature from hot to cold on the climate control.

 

had this same issue 2 days ago i swapped my thermostat and lower radiator hose, and in the process air got into the system....it took me about 2 hours of walking back and forth with 2 gallon jugs of water to my car and apt but i got all the air out and it works like a champ now...wish i would have had a spill free kit from pepboys...would made it soo much easier...

 

I tried the hose swap in the pic it didn't help any other suggestions