-20 cold winter night, Mirage's heater sucks

[Top_Fuel]

...more heat on the driver's side...
...Clearly the solution to this is taking it to the shop...

Replace the cabin filter first (or just completely remove it temporarily) to see if it makes a difference in your heat output. That won't cost you anything.

Unless you have money to burn, I would try to make it through this winter without touching your heater core. Replacing it will cost you $1000 USD and it may not be required. A couple of us have tested some potential solutions for cleaning out the heater core without removing it from the car. I'm going to give this a shot in a few months when it's warmer.

[dspace9]

Replace the cabin filter first (or just completely remove it temporarily) to see if it makes a difference in your heat output. That won't cost you anything.

Unless you have money to burn, I would try to make it through this winter without touching your heater core. Replacing it will cost you $1000 USD and it may not be required. A couple of us have tested some potential solutions for cleaning out the heater core without removing it from the car. I'm going to give this a shot in a few months when it's warmer.

The fan has been making a racket, I could feel that fan perfect earlier in my hand. I wonder how long the bun had no paddy in it. I don't think I'd want to run my own house furnace for 8 years with no filter. This is just great.

I think the heat distribution is a 60/40 split driver's/passengers respectively. I don't think my heater core is going, I was idling at McDonald's middle of the night just now for Family Day Weekend and I had an "ok" amount of heat at around -10 C. I will check my Ferenheit thermometer in my kitchen.. and it's 4 F outside, so more like -20 C

I am one of those people who is always cold and frozen no matter the weather so..

[daleWV]

With no cabin air filter for some period of time I would wonder how plugged up the air passages in the heater core are?

[MigWay]

Compared to 3-banger Focus, Mirage doesn't hold the heat or cool well. Some extra rubber seals and insulation is recommended by my a-year ownership, if your heater core is working properly.
When I am on highway, heat is produced consistently and my partial body is toasted. Sooner or later I stop at red or city driving, I have a nice and warm cabin. I do have engine temp. monitor on veh; when stopping, ECT will drop the most 10C..... Also, I could feel cold air coming in from windows control buttons and my feet, especially I could feel strong wind when doing car wash.

[dspace9]

I don't know what to say about my missing cabin filter for 0-8 years. I don't think gunk is gonna get into the heater core unit itself, and start adding corn starch to my antifreeze system. The fan felt okay the other day. The thing with doing work near the passenger airbag, you don't want one of those airbags going off on one's face eh up close.

I'm told Mirage filters are twice the price as most cars. May be a supply/demand thing in North America, where they don't sell as many Mitsubishis as other markets worldwide.

[Eggman]

I don't know what to say about my missing cabin filter for 0-8 years. I don't think gunk is gonna get into the heater core unit itself, and start adding corn starch to my antifreeze system. The fan felt okay the other day. The thing with doing work near the passenger airbag, you don't want one of those airbags going off on one's face eh up close.

I'm told Mirage filters are twice the price as most cars. May be a supply/demand thing in North America, where they don't sell as many Mitsubishis as other markets worldwide.

Corn starch? Mind sharing where you heard about adding corn starch to an antifreeze system? What benefit would that have? Haven't heard of adding corn starch to a coolant before.

[dspace9]

Corn starch? Mind sharing where you heard about adding corn starch to an antifreeze system? What benefit would that have? Haven't heard of adding corn starch to a coolant before.

No ha ha, I was using a simile I guess, to get my point across about polluted anti freeze in my heater core.

I meant if stuff got into my coolant system, my radiator and my heater core. There might be gunk in the plastic heating tubes however, but I think I'm safe with the antifreeze not being gunked up or have paint chips, or whatever, inside, from not having a cabin filter. Like adding corn starch to soup to thicken it. That's all I meant. Not literally lol.

[dspace9]

I meant I think I would know it if leaf debris and my own dust went into my radiator. I don't know what kind of damage no filter has on a heater core or the duct work in the car to get the interior heat on. I think things are good inside the pipes, but the other pipes to the vents, and where the fan blowing out at me, might have grime, but that grime probably isn't getting into my engine's antifreeze. And one way to describe that is like adding some substance to my antifreeze. Levels look good anyway. Don't do that job with the engine being hot or else you end up looking like two face on batman lol. You don't have to open up the radiator anyways with the reservoir there of course.

[daleWV]

I don't know what kind of damage no filter has on a heater core or the duct work in the car to get the interior heat on.

I think its possible that leaves and debris that would normally be stopped by the cabin air filter could travel on through and get ground up in the fan blades (making noise like you stated) and get blown up onto the heater core and block the AIR passages through the core, thereby reducing the heaters output. I know that my cabin air filter collects all kinds of crap that I would hate to have pass on through into the heater and A/C.

[dspace9]

I think its possible that leaves and debris that would normally be stopped by the cabin air filter could travel on through and get ground up in the fan blades (making noise like you stated) and get blown up onto the heater core and block the AIR passages through the core, thereby reducing the heaters output. I know that my cabin air filter collects all kinds of crap that I would hate to have pass on through into the heater and A/C.

I know eh. I don't know how I got into this situation in the first place. I thought cars came with cabin filters from the factory? Accident happened somewhere I guess.