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Heater core, Best to go OEM?

Scott Y

Well-known member
Joined
May 8, 2001
Messages
482
Location
Lakewood, Colorado, USA
I turned on the AC last week and a blast of visible moisture came out of the vents. The windshield has a film on it, and I can smell antifreeze a little bit. The heater core is original, and it's gone 175K miles. It's an unexpected and unglamorus expense, of course, and that makes me cringe at OEM pricing.

JNZ has heater cores for $263. Will I be hating life if I go non-OEM?
 

slobra

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
494
Location
Wilmington, De
I bought a used one off a member for like $20 shipped and has worked great since.
 

Barnes

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 9, 2003
Messages
6,249
Location
Richland, WA
Used route is excellent if you know it is working good.

Other option is a Carquest heater core for example. I paid $100 for mine and it put out even more heat than the stoker. However, not sure if it was a bad core, it developed a pin hole leak in the end tank.

I replaced it with a good used core and it is still going strong.
 

JNR

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2004
Messages
9,814
Location
ca
While not for the galant, I've had good luck with aftermarket heater cores. IIRC, got mine from NAPA, which *usually* sells pretty good stuff; a little more than autozone and stuff, but for stuff like this, it's worth it to me.

Factory stuff is not always the best and surely not the cheapest!
 

Terry Posten

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 16, 2003
Messages
9,009
Location
Davenport, Iowa USA
I would not hesitate to use an aftermarket unit.
 

BoostedAWD91

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
Messages
2,937
Location
Danville,Pa
from personal experience u want to stick with OEM. Your best bet is to find a good used one unless u wanna fork out $300 for a new one. I dont have to good of heat and i didnt want spend that much on a new OEM one so i went and bought one from the auto parts store for $100 i belive it was. It was not the exact same specs as the oem one as it did not fit in the heater core case. I had to leave some clamps off and really force it to even get it to come close to getting the case closed. The OEM heater cores have a foam insulation wrapped around the core and the aftermarket ones do not. They give u a big strip of it that is peel and stick but u cant use it anyways cause or you'll never get the case closed. After all of that too, it didnt even really work to great, i still dont have much heat. So i would ONLY use OEM. FYI, 1G DSM's use the same heater core, just case it alitle different so if u cant find one from a galant u can use a DSM one
 

Barnes

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 9, 2003
Messages
6,249
Location
Richland, WA
In response to BoostedAWD91's post: My core from CarQuest was not a 100% match to the OEM core. It did however fit okay after you arranged the supplied foam strip properly.
 
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