So i had to put on the heat in the car today for the first time in a long long time. I set it to 78 degrees and pressed the auto button. The two center vents blue cold air while the one on the end, all the way to the left of the car, blew warm air. I thought that eventually the middle vents would blow warm air but they stayed pretty cold. Any ideas what the problem could be? Or am i just not doing something right?

 

Hey Ryan,
You might have broken linkage on the stepper motors that move the air control flaps in the dash. The part is cheap, but it takes all darn day to take the dash apart to fix it.

Heaters in FL often die of boredom, and lack of use with high summer heat contributes to the broken linkages.

I don't think you are doing anything wrong. You might try pushing the recirculate button to see if the outside air door will close. This might allow the center vent to warm up a bit. When you hit the windshield defrost button, do the dash vents close and the window vents open and blow dragon breath on the inside the glass?

 

I didn't get a chance to try the defroster yet but i think you may be right about the stepper motors because i do get those clicks when i first put the key in the ignition. I may just leave it as is because i rarely have the need to put on the heat. Thanks for the info though.

 

Maybe a stupid one - between the 2 blowholes is a seting wheel (blue one) which let's the fresh air to the car ... Try to close it ...

 

Yes, back in 2002 they had that crazy vent thing on top of the dash that lets cold air in and also a wheel in between the vents that did a similar thing. It's hard for the rest of us to visualize because they did away with part of it in 2003 and all of it in 2004.

 

Hmm, that may have something to do that. I thought the wheel on the vent on top of the dash was just to open or close it. I didn't know it also let in cold air. I will definately try the wheel with the blue on it though.