I have a 180* thermostat in and the heat just dont seem to get as hot as i thought it would. I live in minnesota and its in the negatives now around 10 below even when it was 30 it didnt seem to get as hot. could this be from not getting as warm or an air bubble in the heater core???

 

first of all the heaters in our truck generally suck. if you haven't already flushed the heater core both ways do that. you should also put the 195* or hotter t-stat back in for cold weather. you might also want to put some cardboard in front of the radiator and warm up the system some more.

 

ya same thing i was thinking i will have to run to the parts store tomorrow. do they make hotter thermostats than 195* I wouldnt think it would hurt to run the engine at say 210 over winter.

 

i'm sure they do. a 205 wouldn't hurt anything. i went to stant.com, but they didn't specifically list anything for our dodge hotter than a 195. i'm sure there are some but you'd just have to go to a parts store with some experience and measure it for proper fit.

 

They do? Hell, I've been roasted out of my truck.

 

I had the same issue last winter, rather than getting my hands dirty, I just made a radiator cover and zip tied it to the grille. It helped to keep the heat up but it was so cold out you didnt have to worry about overheating.

 

That's pretty cold, and at those temps, a 15* difference in your t-stat temp can seem like a lot more. I would take Indy's advice first with the radiator cover and see if that helps. If so, it would be a lot easier than taking the t-stat out.

 

It's been BITTER cold here in OK lately. When the temps for the morning drive are below zero, I have a large piece of cardboard in front of the radiator to block the air flow. The truck heats up nicely and I'm cozy.

 

haha that's because your truck temp runs about 275*.....

 

I disagree 100%

My truck has always had a great heater. It quit working last winter and wouldn't get hot. I had one shop work on it and said they flushed the heater core and also changed the water pump as they said it wasn't pumping out enough water. Well, never fixed it but when another shop did some stuff I told him to look at it again. He flushed the heater core again and my heat came back. It worked really well once again. I mean hot. He said all kinds of junk came out of the heater core.

I later replaced the heater core just for piece of mind when doing the evap coil and it still works great. Not sure if it's the same or better as before as it worked amazingly before. It's one of the best heaters I've seen. Anyway, now on one notch even when it's 20 degrees or so outside it seems to get too hot and I have to turn the **** to the middle of the hot and cold. You can forget using 3 notches or 4 unless it's when you are first warming up. After a few minutes you have to turn it down. It also feels like it's burning your hand if you put your hand up to the vents with it on 3 notches. I love it but sometimes it's too hot. I've had others comment on this too. It gets really hot and you often can't have the dial set all the way to hot. I've had to roll the windows down some with it on the hot side of the dial and on the first notch. This is when it's 20-30 degrees out.

Now this is once the engine gets up to temp. If the engine isn't up to temp the heat isn't hot until the engine warms up. Within 5 minutes usually probably less it's usually super hot though. The other cars we have have decent heaters one is really good but I don't think any get this hot and work this well.