steam coming into car

bobin fudge

got a new radiator put in to the car recently and havent been driving too much since then, when I first went to drive steam was coming into the car from the glove compartment and the vents on the driverside

seemed to go after about 30 mins and just put this down to the new rad being new, after the drive I checked the radiator to see the water and unscrewed the top and the steam came out piping hot and horrible smell -same smell as in the car

Is there somthing seriously wrong or am I right in thinking once I have driven it more often and for longer times it will correct itself -it seemed to disappear after about an hour of driving ?

thanks

JBokeh

Why was the rad replaced do you know?

That happened in my old car,turned out the heater matrix was stuffed. Try and bypass it by making a bend in the pipes going from the engine to the bulkhead so that the pipe just loops back and doesn't go into the bulkhead.

In mine it was the original overheat of the engine caused the seals on the heater matrix to expand.and when they contracted they didn't seat properly causing the leak. I didn't know that they were gone till i got the overheating problem fixed,then got the steam coming out the vents when I drove it the next time.

bobin fudge

I genuinely dont know, I left the car on a forecourt to get 2 new tyres and left for an hour and came back and asked how they got on, they pointed at the car and the radiator was completely damaged, leaking everywhere and all the water had come out -they said that as soon as they turned the key the radiator just went

Perhaps it did or it didnt, who knows. I got a friend who is very good with motors and he sourced and installed it for under 200e

Seems fine ie nothing coming up on the dash as in overheating and drives fine apart from the steam coming in at the start of journies -will pop past him at the weekend and he will take a quick look over

thanks for the reply

George Dalton

What kind of car is it?

bobin fudge

1990 bmw520i

Tony D

It does sound like the matrix. Bring it back to th person who fitted the new rad?

Pottler

Was it bled out corectly?. Sounds airlocked to me.

bobin fudge

you might be right, when I finished driving I unscrewed the top a little where the water goes in and it was hissing and bubbling and alot of pressure if I had unscrewed it off completely at the time boiling hot water would have gone flying out of it

keithsfleet

Heater matrix without a doubt. Bypassing it as another person said will fix it however it will leave you with no hot, or even warm air.

bobin fudge

thanks, will it be expensive job to fix the heating matrix on them?

keithsfleet

Not familiar with your car but your looking at 200-400 for the part and probably similar money for labour as it's a very fidgety job because the matrix is dug depp under the dash board. Very cheap fix as already stated is to bypass the matrix. Just google your car and "heater matrix bypass" it's an easy job for even the non diy-er.