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02' 9-5 AC issue, Air circulation and heat entering cabin. Please help!

2K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  pyon_ch 
#1 ·
Hello, so as the title says, I have a couple of issues with my 9-5 AC.

Whenever I drive at speeds faster than 60 km/h I seem to get air coming out of my vents, and it's usually hot air.

I was told that there's a flap that opens/closes coolant access to the heater core, and mine is stuck in the open position which results in the hot air heating my cabin. The second issue I believe seems to be from the air circulation flap, after some investigation under the dash I saw the air circulation flaps are not closing and are stuck in the open position which brings in outside air. I can manually close them by hand but I still get air coming into the cabin, my guess they're too loose to stay shut, maybe I need to tape them?

For the hot air I don't know how I'm able to fix it without totally shutting off coolant access to the heater core. If possible I'd like to repair it and still keep the heater functional.

I appreciate any help, many thanks!
 
#3 ·
Run the ACC diagnostic. Press Auto and Off buttons simultaneously for a few seconds and let go. System will now run a diagnostic. Display will show number of faults on the left (like 1, 2, etc.) and a code(s) on the right hand side. Then check the fault code here and will give you an idea of what is going-on:
 
#4 ·
I've already done that, the only code I get is 13 which is for the air distribution flap being jammed (due to my air circulation being open and bringing in dust resulted in more friction in the flap)

The second code I got is 11 which is for the right side blend door. Now I remember driving it a while ago and I would get hot air through most of the vents except for the right most one. But do you have any other ideas as to why I still get hot air and outside air and how to fix it?
 
#6 ·
I was told that there's a flap that opens/closes coolant access to the heater core, and mine is stuck in the open position which results in the hot air heating my cabin
On many 9-5s, yes. Its known as the "Starship Enterprise" valve due to the shape, and is on the bulkhead in the centre. My 2004 luckily doesn't have it. I believe its vacuum driven, and reduces hot coolant flow to the matrix in hot engine conditions. They are prone to leak coolant, and were later considered non-essential, and more trouble than they're worth, i.e. they don't make that much difference.

Therefore I don't think that's your problem, even if its stuck open, its put your car on a par with cars like mine which never had the valve.

From your symptoms I agree with others, the stepper motors are not driving the distribution and mixing flaps properly. You didn't say what year your car is. There have been changes to the actuation motors over the years. Take off the kick panels in the footwell and observe whether the pushrods are actually moving the cams (> the flaps) in response to ACC panel commands (with engine running).

In early type motors there was an issue with a cog/gear on the output shaft from the stepper motor which slid back down the shaft, so lost engagement with the cam. The fix is to slide the cog back along the shaft. However later motors were different. Early motors were easily visible, later ones are enclosed in a black plastic module with a plastic output "key".
 
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