What's everyone's opinion on a heater core replacement for a 2002 Grand Cherokee. Specifically, is it doable by someone that doesn't work on cars but is a little bit mechanically inclined. It has 99000 miles on it and my friend has known for about a year it was going to start giving him trouble. A few weeks ago he started smelling antifreeze when he turned the heat on and he knows it isn't going away. We've found some basic info online and it appears to be pretty involved. I also see that some folks are claiming this is going to be a 1k+ repair thanks to the labor involved.

10/20/2009 9:14:19 PM

you have to remove the dash, i think they are pretty easy but most techs hate them

10/20/2009 10:10:22 PM

My 96 Ram has the same problem. Heard an extremely loud pop one day during summer and didn't think anything about it. Come wintertime my windshield continually fogged up, both with and without the defroster on full blast. Smelled anti-freeze all the time and put 2 and 2 together. Turned out that the antifreeze vapor from the busted heater core not only was pooling in my ducts and slowly dripping out the floor vents it was evaporating from the heater and leaving a nice oily film on all my windows. It's a bitch to clean up the smears. The root cause turned out to be that the timing chain seal went out sometime before summer and had oil seeping into the coolant, eventually clogging the heater core during the summer, leading to one of the tubes bursting from the built up pressure.

If it's his DD and he needs it for the upcoming winter he's gonna wish he had it fixed. The core itself is probably 100-150, the rest would be labor. It sounds like a good job for zxappeal. Taking out the dashboard, heater box top disassembly, disconnecting the heater core lines and pulling it out/replacing. If the freon lines are in the way and you have to evac and disconnect them it's more of a PITA.

10/20/2009 10:19:41 PM

its hard to give advice because these statements are very relative:

Quote :

"someone that doesn't work on cars but is a little bit mechanically inclined"

Quote :

"We've found some basic info online and it appears to be pretty involved"

so, if you are mechanically inclined enough and have a whole weekend to devote to it, you can do it. because there are plenty of techs at jeep dealerships who certainly do it frequently.

10/20/2009 10:21:20 PM

^^ & ^^^ Thanks!

^ He has basic wrenching experience, enough to change oil, R&R bolt on stuff, etc. But more complicated stuff like evac. freon would be reason to pay shop labor $$$.

zxappeal, you sir have PM.

[Edited on October 20, 2009 at 11:09 PM. Reason : .]

10/20/2009 11:09:09 PM

its about a 3-4 hour job for an experienced mechanic, if none of that cheap brittle plastic breaks

10/21/2009 10:06:16 AM