1.9td 1996 Climate Control

[aust250378]

Has anybody found with these that the climate control takes a while from when you start the key to actually cooling quickly or heating?

For example, outside temperature 25 degrees climate set at 21 degrees, you start the engine and get cool air, but only very slowly, it takes until the car reaches 70 on the temp guage before it goes "Oh right it's actually quite hot!" and kicks in the air con much more, almost as if an invisible switch is tripped when the car is up to a certain temp?

However if I manually overide the system or drop the temp to 14 degrees the desired temp is reached almost instantantly. Similar in the morning if it's cold I find setting the temp to 30 degrees gets the car blowing hot air much quicker than if I had just left the control at 21 degrees.

Austin

[highlander]

Suggests that the fan in the air sampler unit (located in the overhead console, where the map lights/courtesy light is) is maybe a bit clogged.

The climate control sensor has a tiny little fan in it which sucks air in from the cabin so that its temperature can be read (without waiting for the cabin air to reach it via normal convection). The fan is only a few millimetres across, so it is possible that this has either clogged up to the point where air is not getting in quickly enough, or the fan has failed entirely.

Open up the overhead console and you should see the little fan. It looks like this (picture found on the Coupe Club forums):


Clean it with a small paint brush (the kind you use for painting model planes/cars/boats/etc). Don't put it all back together again before you try turning the ignition on and see if the fan rotates. If it doesn't, then you need to go get another one from a scrappy. I can't imagine them being hugely expensive from the main dealers either, but you might be surprised!

Hope this helps

Cheers
Graeme

[aust250378]

Thanks for the detailed response!

I'll have a look later, is it a fiddle to open the overhead console?

Ta

Austin

[highlander]

No idea, I've never done it I just remembered the thread.

Can't be too difficult though; there's bulbs in there that need to be user-replaceable. Someone who's had to do this will be along in a minute with a step-by-step

[aust250378]

I had a quick look and I can see the fan spinning using the light from my phone, so at least thats working, I tried carefully pulling the console out and broke one of the clips due to how brittle they have become. although ones not too bad, I'm dubious about going any further, what I may do is try modifying a pasting brush so there are only a few long bristles and hopefully they will reach the sensor through the the grill to clean out the dirt?

Regards

Austin