Pug 205 feeble heater

I would try and flush the entire cooling system out as a matter of course and see how you get on.

It could be a duff thermostat, but even then unless it is really slack I have always had a toasty heater in most of my French cars (unless a PO removed it but this would be obvious with your temp gauge).

I hope (and reckon it is not this) it is not an airlock. On my 106 it turned out to have an airlock (it went from throwing out a trickle of heat to near enough no heat at all when I bought it). It seemed to be running at a normal temp bar the fan coming in and out a few times more than I expected in a snowy Edinburgh. Refilling the car with coolant right to the top of the expansion tank neck (making it higher than any bleed screw) and simultaneously unscrewing the matrix bleed screw cured it, leaving me with one very toasty heater . Do you have pics of your 205 engine bay, as you may need to use a higher 'header tank' to do this (on the GTis it is not necessary with the header tank being higher than everything IME.

Generally 205s have a couple of bleed screws like other similar Pugs (one on the thermostat housing and the other in the top heat matrix pipe. The source of the water loss was an incorrect expansion cap fitted when I initially bought the car). As a quick fix I would try bleeding the system initially.

FWIW, here is a picture of my engine bay. You should just able to make out the bleed screw on the top heater hose right next to the servo:

Usuall way to sort the air lock is a 2ltr coke bottle with the bottom cut off, lid off stick it kneck first into teh expansion tank and fill to the top (holding it tight in the tank so you loos very little or no water, then run the engine and undo ythe bleed valves till they flow only water, no bubbles.
OR if theer are no bleed points, half fill the water system and run the engine up filling slowly as it runs, squeezing the hoses as you go, although TBH when you say it takes ages to warm up it could be the stat stuck open but only testing for hot rad/hoses will tell that, diesel (non turbo) do take ages to warm up.
Best test all the hoses with the engine running hot/warm first then get back to us rather than jump in doing work thats not needed first

On my 205 the expansion tank is held on by a rubber band, so you can remove it and hold it up high, there is a bleed screw on top of the heater pipe, with the tank elevated it should fire coolant out quite forcefully and immediately when unscrewed. Might be different on a diesel or a phase 2 though.

Yeah the fan is fine. Ok, I'll check the hoses! I'm doing a coolant change next week anyway as I've just realised theres only water in there.

Other thing to mention is it does get *kinda* warm. Almost to a point of being bareable. But I still get cold hands and I don't feel that toasty. Therefore I imagine it's either a thermostat stuck open or knackered matrix but I'll deffinatly check the hoses.

It is amazing how many 'enthusiasts' forget to bleed the system on Pugs. I remember my mate almost forgot to do this on the 205...