[Bryce-C]

So I have a 2006 325i with roughly 82,000 miles with a heater problem. It does not seem to be blowing hot air, it gets warm but no where near as hot as it should, and as a result of this the front defroster does not work at all.

Now to clarify I have done quite a bit of research on this forum, a few other forums, and all over google to try and find some tips for my specific problem and have come up empty so far so let me explain my symptoms and what I have tried so far and maybe a few of you can throw in a little advice.

So the symptoms are with the heater turned all the way up to 84 with the A/C Button (snowflake off) and the dial in the middle of the dash turned to red the heater just never seems to get hot. In addition to that when I try and use the front defroster it does the complete opposite of defrosting and just fogs up the entire windshield. *Also a few other bits of information that could be useful to someone with more knowledge than me. The car does seem to have a small coolant leak somewhere, I see it in the driveway and I notice the coolant level drops slightly to the point where I have to top it off every other month or so. Second when I run the A/C sometimes I get a little bit of what seems to just be condensation spraying out of the vents (looks like smoke) but it does not have any scent to it that I can tell and it does not fill up the cabin or anything.

From what I have read online so far the problem could be anywhere from the water pump or thermostat, to the heater core, or to the heat control valve. So I checked what I would consider to be the easiest first and went into the Hidden Menu to make sure the coolant was even getting hot enough, and after letting it sit for 10 minutes or so with a short drive around the block the temperature got up to about 90 C which from what I have read seems to be normal. So I am going to rule out the thermostat at this point. Next I borrowed just a basic OBDII scan tool from a friend to see if the water pump or anything else was throwing any codes and I didn't see any from what I could tell. So now I am leaning more towards the Heater Core or the Heat Control Valve and I am looking for some advice for how to proceed next.

I have heard some people recommending checking the hoses coming in and out of the heater core to verify they are warm, but I am not exactly sure where the heater core is or what hoses those would be. In addition to that some people have had success with just flushing out the heater core. I am skeptical about the heather core leaking or anything like that as I do not notice any coolant leaking in the car, and most threads I have read about faulty heater cores tend to have heat on one side or not the other, or something similar to that which I don't have.

So that's a fairly good run down of what my symptoms are and what I have tried so far so any advice would be greatly appreciated. I would like to try as many things as I can before biting the bullet and taking it in to the shop to have them diagnose it just to find out it's something simple.

Thanks in advance for any input.