Car blowing cold air

CoBo55

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Matrix is ****ed, 100%. The veins are so fine, once they start blocking, there really is no return.

Unless it's really really far gone in terms of sludging the rest of the stuff like the main rad water pumps, EGR etc should be salvagable.

There are two keys to success with this IMO.

One is using the real VW cleaning agent as it allegedly has "stuff" in it to break down and dissolve the sludge. I think the kit isn't too expensive. Flushing with water or generic rad flushes is a waste of time.

The other is to follow the correct flushing and bleeding sequence. There is one mechanical water pump and 3 electronic pumps on most of the 1.6's and activating them in the right sequence and properly bleeding the system each time is key to getting the cleaning agent into every crevace and also emptying all the contents from the system. As in if you have pump 1 running but pump 2 isn't, how will you ever get the debris between the two out?

After that just keep flushing.

Have seen a handful needing a rake of stuff replaced where no amount of cleaning would do. The only upshot to the OP's predicament is that he's had two coolant changes recently so thst should have taken some amount of crud with it, which may have helped with some level of damage limitation.

Seems to be an awful lot of crud from a ruptured silica bag or is it coming from somewhere else in the system?

Toyotafanboi

Nobody really knows. For a long time the silica bag was to blame. I think the current theory is now it's the coolant itself overheating in certain pockets of the engine and congealing. No harm to remove the bag regardless IMO.

The coolant model has been revised from G13 to G13+ to G13++ to G13 EVO so they clearly aren't happy with the blend or whatever you'd call it.

colm_mcm

The timing belt would have been due either way I suppose. Hopefully it doesn’t have to be done again.