no heating and cooling light just came on ???????

[boxednfresh]

getting really annoyed with the fault that are occuring now. Turned on my car, all things good, then turned the heating on and noticed that it was taking a very long time to heat up. Then all of a sudden the cooling light turned on, engine fan turned on and for some strange reason started hearing the swishing of fluid back and forth coming from the passenger side

what just happened? has my radiator gone? leak in the cooling system?

worried to drive it now

[mab01uk]

Have you checked coolant level in the expansion tank? Heater will blow colder if there is low coolant and an airlock has formed in the system and as engine may overheat so fan cuts in. Low level could be due to a leak in the cooling system so would need to be checked out asap. The swishing sound could be the airlocks moving through the heater matrix inside the car, the heater pipes enter through the bulkhead on the passenger side.

Do not drive until you have checked the coolant level, cause of coolant loss, etc, or you may overheat and seriously damage the engine or head gasket.

[boxednfresh]

thanks for a detailed explanation. I rem that the coolant tank is generally always full. I top it up now and then.

how do u get the airlock out? also had a recent new power steering pump put in could they have caused this when installing? merely asking

[mab01uk]

Power steering pump should not have affected cooling system in any way.

The coolant system needs to be bleed of air (there are 2 or 3 bleed points depending on model) and also checked for slow leaks if level needs topping up regularly. There are several guides on Mini2 if you search for 'bleeding'.

[Apial]

You could also have a blown head gasket. Gas leaking from the cylinder can cause the water system to over pressurise and lose coolant. This then manifests itself as loss of heating and also the engine overheating light coming on. Hopefully it is just a leak.