My heat can barely be called that..... It blows somewhat luke warm air out. I dont have A/c, but i use the heat with the recirc. button which fogs my windows up like no other. I thought it could be my thermastat but my temp guage has always worked... Then i did a swap, and the heat didnt get better or worse. ITs got new antifreeze in it, and a different thermastat.... Dont know if the temperature dial is broken or if the cable is, but i got under the dash and moved it so it would be on heat, and i have no need to turn it to cold because i dont have A/C.
Also my car takes about a full 5 minutes of driving to begin to warm up in COLD weather, is this normal?

 

its part of a basic tune up. something that should have been done before the motor went in, go buy a new thermostat. It'll fix the problem.

 

Well i thought there woudl have been "some" improvement by using a thermastat with 40k miles, than one with 194k..... but maybe i am wrong?

 

Well it could either be your thermostat (they can go bad at any mileage) or maybe your heater core is partially clogged. I was having a problem with little to no heat and I had the coolant flushed and that didnt do it so I went and changed the thermostat still no heat so I talked to a few shops and they said it could possibly my heater core. If you grab onto each of the hoses that goes into your car (the heater hoses that is) they should be the same temp if not theres something wrong with your heater core. One of the shops were telling me about this thing they used that blem water and air through the heater core to possibly un-clog it but they also said that I take the chance of blowing up my heater core in the process if the heater core is really clogged. So what I did was I took off both of the lines myself and just blew through it well it was kind of hard but it went through so I was like OK put everything back together and well ever since then I have had heat so its possible that I cleared the little clog that I had by doing this.....Oh and also my water pump was leaking and after I did this that also stopped leaking.

 

yes it is normal for the car to take 5 minutes to warm up when its cold. sometimes it takes even longer

 

make sure the blend door is at full hot and with the car warmed up, go feel the lines going to the heater core and see if both are similar temp or if one is hot and the other is cold. same with the radiator hoses assuming the thermostat has opened.

 

takes forever for my rex to warm up when its cold b/c it has such a large radiatior for such a small engine.

Blaze