Does anyone else feel like the heater in these cars is not as hot as it could be? My previous TL and Accord felt like hell when they were on, this one seems to be weak. I have done complete timing belt kit incld. WP, and thermostat. With my thermometer in the vent it never gets above 120-130 degrees. Which seems hot but these past few weeks here have been barely sufficient, with the weather in the teens and lower.

 

Well, this might not help all that much, considering I live in California, but I have found the heater to be quite good, actually. All though this will sound absolutely crazy. I have a good story about it.

So I was driving back to my university in Arizona in the summertime. The outside temperature was something like 115 or something crazy like that. So I was on I-10 in Arizona, and of course everyone speeds there, like a lot, maybe around 100 MPH. Let's just say someone who isn't me decided to go faster to make better time.

Anyway, what I found out was that the outside air temperature could hardly cool the engine fast enough for the given conditions. So what I did was turn the air conditioner off and then turned the heater on full blast. This was actually an astonishingly effective way to cool the engine down. Now granted, the needle was only about 3/4 the way up, still nominal, but I didn't like it that high. And when I did the heater trick, it went down to about 3/8 the way up.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it might just be a result of your environment. Teens and lower is pretty damn cold.

Also, once I put my thermometer in the air conditioning at full blast. It got all the way down to 38. And I'm not kidding!

 

Make sure you got a 50/50 mix going and the system is bled properly.


If you do a lot of highway driving you could put a piece of cardboard in front of the rad to keep the extremely cold air from cooling your coolant down a lot.

 

im pretty sure it is bled right, it has Honda pre-mixed fluid. It just seems strange, I have a heated garage set to 55 degrees and the car will warm up quick. just not hot heat like i'm used to I guess.

 

I've only had my '02 since October of this year but I can say my heater kicks butt. We had some temps well below 0*F a few weeks ago and I had no problems. I set it at 75* when I start out and in less than 30 minutes I'm turning it down to 70*.
Check that the water control valve is connected and operating. The cable may have popped off or is broken. You could also have a plugged heater coil.