I'm at my fiancee's parent's house and their '99 Grand Cherokee with the 4.0l doesnt have much heat and runs slightly hot at times. I've read that it has a magic self bleeding system technically, but in practice its not so good.

The factory manuals says NEVER REMOVE THE RADIATOR CAP OR IT'LL NEVER WORK AGAIN AND YOU'LL DIE.

Any unofficial tips on how to bleed this sucker?

1/30/2009 6:04:16 PM

First, run the engine till warm and see if your heater hoses are hot, if so, you have a blend door problem, if not then start this process:


1. take off the radiator cap and make sure the radiator is full

2. leave the radiator cap off, run the engine till it warms up with the heat on high, and make sure it is circulating, and top off as needed, then check your overflow cannister hose for cracks

2. if you still don't have heat take off the heater hose at the thermostat housing and hold the hose about halfway down the engine, water should run out, if not, then hold the hose up, fill the radiator until it runs out of the connection on the housing, then hold the hose down again

3. once you have water from the hose and the housing, put it back on, and repeat step 2

1/30/2009 6:35:35 PM

ok ill try that in about a week when i go back up.

the heat works good on recycle mode, but all others are pretty shitty. There is SOME heat, but definitely not a normal amount. They took it up to Ottawa and at night it was -9F and they all almost froze to death. lol

1/31/2009 7:21:17 PM

same thing is happening on my lincoln ls. on recirculate i can get enough heat to stay almost reasonably warm if i keep a coat on lol..without recirculate it's cold as balls. seems to work better when i drive the shit out of it..i get warm air after like 4,000 RPM's lol

need to check the hoses and see where the problem is but haven't felt like dealing with it

1/31/2009 9:12:30 PM

noobs

2/1/2009 6:30:04 PM

i've done lots of cooling system work (i've owned 3 BMWs ), but none of their manuals have ever said DON'T OPEN THE RADIATOR CAP EVAR!!!!!!!. So rather that screw up my fiancee's dad's car on a work night i figured i'd ask TWW. sounds smart to me

2/1/2009 11:06:24 PM