Hi all, Very new to Ferrari / 355 ownership. Bought a 99 GTS F1 in silver, and love it. Unfortunately, she was delivered with a faulty heater (air con works ok, no heat). Add to that a nice pool of blue coolant in the front luggage area which needs mopping up every couple of days. And no chance the supplying dealer will deal with this post-sale. I assume I have a coolant leak associated with the HVAC system in the front (engine stays on temp nicely). I sure I have a faulty Heater Valve (as it doesn't move on command, and when manually moved I get heat) and I've ordered a replacement yesterday, but why the leak into the luggage compartment? Can it be associated with the Heater Valve? I'm hoping it is... Or could it be loose / cracked piping? Finally, do I have to drain all the coolant to replace the Heater Valve? I'm a complete novice, but have the time to try and have a go at such stuff before I call in the pros... Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
Pull the front cover off and have a look. It doesn't take much to get it off and once you do a lot of stuff that you are questioning is exposed.
Its usually something simple. Might be expensive... but simple. Agree that to get access you're going to have to pull off the covers. Here's a pic of the carpets for the front compartment. Once they're off (esp #9), you should be able to see things much more clearly and have access to it much more readily. Might be more than one source of the leak.. perhaps even a bad prior repair, broke more when trying to fix it. Need to get in and see.. Depending how high the valve is... the official answer might be drain the coolant.. but you might be able to get away with just replacing it. Admittely haven't done one on the 355. Beware of air bubbles in the system... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Everything pertaining to the heater coolant system is under cover #8. You may want to check the classified ads for any parts you may need....many FChat members list parts there at a substantial savings over vendor pricing. Image Unavailable, Please Login
If the car is low mileage it might just be a loose clamp on one of the hoses. The factory left a lot of them loose and a lot of the heater hoses just blew off. If the heater valve does not open it is most often a bad HVAC control unit. I think it is #46 in the picture.
had the same issue with mine (my car had 21k miles on it when I bought it) and it was the hose. I pressure tested the heater core just in case, it was fine, and put a new hose one... because might as well... and didn't have a problem for 2 years (sold it). I would recommend testing the heater cored to make sure its not leaking its usually only like 30 or 40 bucks and its good piece of mind. The cars are around 15-20 years old now and coolant cant get pretty gross
Thank you for all the answers / guidance. Found one of the hoses was loose - easy fix. Will take another look as the HVAC is still faulty, but at least I have less coolant in the luggage area. Thanks all,
