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I checked all fuses under the hoodm, and in the dash on the drivers side where the dash meets the drivers door. All were okay. I checked the vacuum lines and other vacuum related info I found on the internet. Nothing was wrong with what was recommended to check. I re-read all of the online info I could find again, and the blending door was mentioned on a few of the sites. So I checked those. Nothing was wrong and everything was working okay.
THEN I NOTICED A BLACK MOTOR TYPE HOUSING WITH A ELECTRICAL CONNECTOR UNDER THE DASH WHERE IT MEETS THE FLOOR. ALMOST EXACTLY IN THE CENTER WHERE A CONSOLE WOULD BE IF YOU HAD A SHIFTER ON THE FLOOR. IT IS ON THE PASSENGER SIDE BUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CONSOLE TYPE AREA. I COULD SEE WITH A FLASHLIGHT THAT THERE WAS A COLLAR OF SOMETHING TURNING CLOCKWISE AND COULD FEEL THE MOTOR TURNING IT. I SHUT OFF THE AC AND IT QUIT. THEN I TURNED THE AC ON AGAIN, AND IT STARTED TO ROTATE CLOCKWISE AS IT WAS BEFORE.
I THOUGHT WHAT THE HELL, SO I DISCONNECTED THE ELECTRICAL CONNECTOR TO THE MOTOR. THE AC STAYED ON ---- OKAY SO LETS GO FOR A TEST DRIVE AND SEE WHATS HAPPENS. DROVE FOR 7 MILES AND MAKING SURE I STOPPED MANY TIMES ALONG THE STREET (DID IT IN A RESIDENTAL AREA SO I WOULD HAVE TO STOP). THE AC STAYED ON, NEVER BLEW HOT AIR AT ALL. ---- WOW---- DID DISCONNECTING THE ELECTRIAL CONNECTOR TO THAT MOTOR WORK????? WELL IT'S BEEN 3 WEEKS AND I HAVE PUT OVER 1,000 MILES ON IT AND THE AC HAS NOT QUIT WORKING ONCE. AND BEING IN ARIZONA, THAT IS WHAT I NEEDED.
SO 3 WEEKS LATER, AC WORKS GREAT, COLD, AND AT TIME TOO COLD. THE ELECTRICAL MOTOR UNDER THE DASH AND WHERE IT MEETS THE FLOOR IN THE CENTER WHERE A CONSOLE WOULD BE CLOSEST TO THE PASSENGER SIDE DID THE TRICK FOR ME.
I hope this helps in your case. But again, if your systoms are the same as mine were, this will do the trick.. I don't know if it will affect the heater operation or not. Right now, I don't care. I'll worry about that in November.
But this is what I did to fix my problem. And I want to thank all of those who pointed me to the blending doors. It wasn't my problem, but I would have never seen the black motor that was turning whatever it was. But by disconnecting that electrical connector. All is fine.
Good luck and let me know if it works for you. If you need a picture of what I am talking about, let me know and send me your personal email address and I will take one and get it to you.
:shades: Staying cool in AZ now.
NEAR THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR WHERE THE TRANSMISSION IS UNDER THE TRUCK JUST WHERE THE FLOOR MEETS THE DASH IN THE MIDDLE
When I turn on the air, none will come out of the vents. it comes out through the defrost vents. It will still get cold and cool the truck down, but will not come out the right place.
How can I fix this?
thanks
Hope this helps those of you with the same problem.
We've been fighting to fix our climate control too in our 2002 2500.. both heat and now AC..which we had to refill to get it to work.. guess that's now leaking too...sighhhhhh
Anyway...Just wondering how you determined the problem was actually in the switch?
We got an extra switch if you want it.. Because we thought our problem was that switch too, so we bought one..put it in and...it wasn't the problem. That would have been the easy fix so we were hoping...
Our problem was the blending door (electrical) needed replacement, to fix it the Whole dash has to come out..so we finally took care of that by jury rigging the heating system last winter (kind of tricky), I wrote about it in previous posts here. But anyway, we have an extra one of those heater/AC control on the dash, it has been tested and works by the company we got it from, I could email you a picture of it if you are interested. You should be able to find them cheaper out there than those prices.
Our control unit has a vacuum switch which controls where the air goes..defrost, vent or floor. (We'll call this the directional door.) If that's the case with yours, you take out your ash tray and look on top of the heater box..you can see the actuator has a plastic hose hooked to it. That might be where your problem is..you might not be getting any vacuum..
You can test it by finding the same diameter hose and attach it to the actuator and suck on the hose to test it...you should see some movement in the little arm that sticks out.. the lever might be stuck, or the directional door itself, stuck or broken..then you got trouble if its the blending door unit.
Got to tell you...we are so disappointed in how cheap they made the Climate control in these trucks. Its a shame... And when they break.. a real pain to fix. :sick:
Good luck with it!
(I see i never did write how he jury rigged the heat to work, but he's left the room now... so that's another story)
kcram - Pickups Host
I just bought one on eBay for $47, shipping included. I'll install it as soon as it gets here and post the results. I figured it was the switch because I have checked all vacuum lines and they were all OK. I unplugged the switch and my A/C has been working ever since. Of course, I don't have any heat but don't need it this time of year, anyway. At least I didn't have to spend the $200 at the Dodge dealership, yet.... We'll see what happens.
kc0brn :confuse:
I guess that the switch wasn't the problem... It must be that "blending door" inside the dash, afterall. I'm not quite ready to give up and pay the dealer to fix it yet...
kc0brn :mad: :confuse:
http://dodgeram.info/tsb/2002/24-004-02.htm
Hope this helps.
Regards
Corkscrew
I'll give that a try and post the results.
kc0brn
If anyone knows of recourse available to me please let me know, otherwise, I will be cutting my losses with Chrysler.
The dealer replaced two doors (5073985-AA, 5073984-AA) at $87.00 for the parts but labor was $595.00. Supposedly they have to evacuate and recharge the system to do this repair. Total repair cost was $690.00 and since I had an extended warranty my part was $100.00.
I believe that extended warranties are a bad deal :P and I will have to have another major repair to break even on the cost.
Being a Dodge; this warranty will come in handy!
Bottom line, the air conditioner failed not because I misused or abused it, it failed because the part was defective or of poor design. To expect the consumer to bear the expense in this matter speaks volumes of the company I am dealing with an automobile company I intend to stay away from in the future.
Thank you.
My son figured out a way to put a piece of wood in it to make a wedge to hold the door in the correct spot . It now works great! He will probably have to change it back this winter to get the defroster to work.
Was a cheap fix compared to the cost from the dealership.
Hope this helps you out!.
In my original reply I said that extended warranties are a bad deal and I will add to that. “I will never purchase another one in the future even though it paid for my recent repair.” :P
The dealer makes about sixty percent in commission from the warranty they sell you, why do you think they are so pushy. The warranty companies research the probability of what they will have to pay out and definitely have the upper hand. They would be out of business if they didn’t.
His solution take the faulty "blend door" out. According to this mechanic the only downside is that it allows outside air in at all times. If I don't like it he will go back in and replace the door at about $500 labor plus parts - so not much to loose in trying.
Prior fix was at a Dodge dealership at about $650 total and 13 months ago. They refuse to re-fix under warranty since I'm outside 12 months.
fyi I have about 131,000 on this truck.
After spending a few hours on the net it seems like 90% of A/C complaints seem to be about this blend or vent door all the way back to earlier models in the late 90s. Why isnt there a class action suit out there we can bandwagon on.
How it works? Just like they said. I get no change in flow when switching from recirculate to outside air but the change from floor to cabin to defrost all work. The only other issue I think is that the air on the passenger side does not feel as cold as on the drivers side but I haven't tested with a temp guage yet. I'll see if I can live with it for a while and save my money in case I have to do the full blown repair agian
I'm not a litigious person but I tend to agree if there's such a common problem Chrysler / Dodge needs to take care of their customers. If they would just cover the obvious faults in their design they would save money rather than spending it on their own defense attorneys and keep it out of the pockets of the slip and fall lawyers.
I hope this will be of use to at least some of you who are experience similar problems.
Thank you.
thanks
Mike
Regards,
Dusty
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Fresh air seems to come in the cab and when I turn the fan speed up it vibrates bad enough to drive you out of the cab. I was trying to find some instructions online about fixing this problem myself. Any advise would be appriciated?
I read all 187 posts. My prob is kinda like some/most. I have an 02 1500 4.7. My issue is the heater air is cooler on driver side than pass side. Also, my defrost is cooler than use to be. I can change the direction knob and hear the doors and whatever else move. All vents work, dash floor defrost. Just not warm enough on drive side and defrost. I rem a TSB I had fixed back in 02 maybe 03 but, I was thinking it was a fan motor issue. Is there a time frame on a TSB? They worked on outside mirror too. Some clip or something.
Any suggestions for my problem?
Can anybody give us a direction to look to find a solution to this problem? (Other than paying the $1,000.00 FINE to Dodge for their lack of intelligence in using faulty parts and still installing them anyways..?!) Any advice will be appreciated!
http://dodgeram.info/tsb/2003/24-004-03.htm
Hope this helps
Before I did anything I would take the vacuum guage and check the pressure at the door actuator under the dash, this will tell you for sure if that is the problem. If it has less than 18-20 inches of vacuum it is most likely the problem. You can splice the small hard plastic lines with the softer rubber lines available at any auto parts store. Be careful when you are searching for the leaky line and don't break or crack any others. I know this sounds like a lot but it's really not hard to do, just a process of elimination. Hope this helps.
The other day I had three things go out at one time, my dome light does not come on when I open the drivers side door (but does when I open the pass.). The seatbelt light wont shut off when the belts are buckled and the ac blower motor does not work. Does anybody have any ideas? I hope I can get some answers befor I go to the dealership please help. Thank you . I have 2004 dodge ram 1500 3.7.
Hope this helps......
The motor has internal detection circuitry for positioning the blend door and the motor can turn past the "point of no return" if it is run disconnected from the blend door. Most garages will want to replace the motor, but it can be brought back to life if you disassemble and re-index it. It's not difficult to get the system working again.
HeaterTreater
Thanks for the insight HeaterTreater, I'll keep at it!
We've resorted to installing a cable to try and control the heat over the winter, but would love to have the system working again properly~~:)
You can check the motor with a 9V snap connector and a fresh battery. My suggestion is to cut the 9V snap connector out of your son's electric guitar and solve two problems at once...;-) The motor has two terminals and you can touch the wires to the terminal and the motor should turn and reverse when you swap the wires. If the motor is not working with the battery, you may have some luck with soaking just the motor in alcohol and drying and trying again. Nothing to lose. There are four of these motors on the truck and you can use the bad motor to lock mode door 2 in permanent 1/2floor/1/2defrost and use that motor to control the blend door. Cheap, but it will work.
While you've got it apart you also want to check the different doors to make sure that they are operating properly. Failures on this HVAC system are common with broken control doors. The simple thing to check is the limit pin on each door. This is an extension like the tail on a "Q" that moves between stop points molded into the plenum box. This limits movement of the door and if the pin is broken, force is transferred directly to the doors and they will break. Internet searches may find more information and pictures.
HeaterTreater
The computer drives the motor to a stall point, remembers the position, then drives the other direction, counting motor revolutions by counting the clicks when the electro-magnetic polarity switches. If the door fails to stall or the distance is measured as being out of range, the computer throws a fail code and shuts the motor down until the next cal routine. If it again detects a failure, it hibernates again, shutting down the motor, and so on.
One of two things is going on with your system.
1. The computer got "confused" during the process of connecting/disconnecting the motor. As Bill Gates has taught us all, when you can't figure out the problem...hit the reset button. The system may just be waiting for an auto-calibration.
2. The blend door is broken and the system will never calibrate correctly since it cannot reach a door stall point and record the extents of movement. The system will stay in an infinite loop of attempting to calibrate, failing, shutting down the motor and wait. The system will run this routine every twenty time the RAM is started.
So...time for a reboot. If you have the fancy-schmancy Chrysler computer diagnostic tools, it's fairly simple. For the rest of us, you can force a complete system reboot by disconnecting/waiting a minute/reconnecting the main battery. The entire computer system will reboot and you may lose your radio channel program. Say hi to Bill while you're there. I think it is likely that the motor will come back to life and operate properly. We've already determined that the motor is good with the 9V battery, so the computer module is next.
You probably should also check the limit pin on the blend door drive axle as described in the last post. If the pin is broken, it's likely that the blend door is also broken or in the process of breaking(screwing up the cal routine). Once the pin goes, it's just a matter of time until the door goes. Dodge will want to remove the plenum box to replace the door and this is an expensive repair. There are aftermarket solutions available.
Your information has been very helpful, we have tried resetting hoping it would auto-calibrate.. and think perhaps that little "Q" shaped bit on the door is broken, so the door goes all the way one way or the other, so its all the way on High or Off when we're are running the heat or the air-conditioning... could you tell me the aftermarket solutions available for this? Because we do not want to pull the dash apart..
thanks~~~:)
This is a discussion only forum and links to off-site information are restricted. You are on your own searching for aftermarket solutions.
Thanks