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Heater core replacement

Boje

Go Kart Champion
Location
Brooklyn, NY
Car(s)
2018 Golf R
Hi all, I recently had a bunch of stuff done to my car (2015 6sp GTI) at 100k miles – carbon cleaning, new mounts, new clutch, fluidampr, new water pump and housing, a new tune and plugs, and a flush of all fluids. That was about 2000 miles ago. Recently I've had a smell of coolant in the cabin with the A/C on, and the dreaded film of grease on the inside of the windshield, all of which seems to point towards a dying or clogged heater core. My mechanic agrees.

Questions are: is it too much of a coincidence that for 100k the car never had this issue, and now that I've had the coolant flushed and the water pump replaced, my heater core has suddenly died, which seems to be relatively rare on these cars? I trust my mechanic and think he's good, but as we all know, no-one cares about your car quite as much as you do... and secondly, I can find very little info about replacing the heater core on Mk7 cars, and so it's unclear if this is a huge job (having to pull out a large portion if not all of the dashboard), or if it can be somehow pulled out and replaced from the driver's footwell without too much removal of trim or any other parts (I'm dreading the squeaks and rattles that I feel like will inevitably follow having the entire dash pulled out). I'm also wondering if this is something I could do myself – I'm guessing that's unlikely (I've done stuff like rear sway bar, FMIC, and hardwired front and rear dashcams myself, and am patient and determined, but I'm no expert and would rather not take on something that will result in me swearing a lot and irreparably screwing up my car).

Thanks in advance to anyone who has any thoughts...
 

jimlloyd40

Autocross Champion
Location
Phoenix
Car(s)
2018 SE DSG
If they did a chemical flush it's not uncommon for something to get clogged up because of it on a higher mileage car.

Here's what I found on YouTube.

 

Boje

Go Kart Champion
Location
Brooklyn, NY
Car(s)
2018 Golf R
If they did a chemical flush it's not uncommon for something to get clogged up because of it on a higher mileage car.

Here's what I found on YouTube.
Good to know. Yeah that video makes it look like quite the headache to me
 
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