Heater blowers not working? Climatronic system

[Ibizasportdavey]

Lee and Rum4Mo thank you for your replies.
This thread had given me a push to do some further testing which might be useful for others as well.
To make sure that my blower had a problem as it hadn't stopped working completely I made a cable which would connect the cigarette lighter to the blower. This way when it stopped working again I could unplug the plug that goes to the blower and provide power with this cable from the cigarette lighter.

Yesterday the blower stopped working again. So I provided power directly from the lighter to the blower. The blower WORKED! I checked with a multimeter if there was power at the plug that goes to the blower and there wasn’t.
Initially I was suspecting that the resistor/thyristor pack was responsible for the problem so I had replaced it, unfortunately the problem remained but I had now a second resistor pack which turned out to be very useful as the one on the car has been placed in a spot that it is hard to access.
So I remove the plug that goes to the resistor pack. This plug has six pins but only five cables – three that come from the climatronic and two for the power ( ground and positive)
So I used normal cables to connect the pins from that plug to the second resistor pack that I had! Not all the pins though ONLY those that come from the clima.
On the two pins which are for the power I connected the cables from the cigarette lighter.
I turned the ignition key and blower was WORKING!! and I could control it’s speed from the clima controls like normal!

I check with a mutlimeter the pins on the resistor plug which brings power and I got NO readings! That was my Eureka moment! The problem is in one of these cables…

I switch the multimeter to continuity put the one probe on the ground pin of the resistor pack plug and the other probe on a metal part and it turned out OK!

At that point I had to stop because I had to catch an appointment. So I connected the resistor plug to the resistor on the car. When I turned on the engine switch the blower started working again which makes me thinking that I need to check the ground cable again.

What I intended to do next time the blower stops working is
1. Unplug the plug that goes to the resistor pack
2 check the continuity with a mutlimeter AGAIN between the ground cable and a metal part of the car
3 check the voltage with a mutlimeter between the positive cable of the plug and a metal part of the car.
4 check the voltage between the ground cable and the positive cable of the resistor plug.
If I get power I need to repeat the procedure next time the blower stops working. If not then from steps 3 and 4 I could tell which cable is responsible for problem and take it from there.

I will keep you posted when I have futher results.

Hopefully when I track down the source of the problem other people could check on that directly and won’t have to follow what I did.


P.S. There is one thing that troubles me though... Chris boom had checked the cables that go to the blower and there was no power.
When he provided power to the blower the blower was dead and when he replaced it worked OK.
So I am wondering if the car is checking on the motor and if it gets high resistance it cuts down the power otherwise why wasn't there any power on the cable that goes to the blower???

Hi i hope you are still a active member of this group. I have the same problem with my blower with the exception that one cold early morning on the way to work heating keeping me warm I had to pull over due to my car filling up with smoke. It was the blower fusee so I removed this and it broke the fuse pins away from the wire. Could you please tell me exactly how you wired yours to the cigarette lighter as I need to check if I have cured my issues with the fuse box and the blower. Thank you. Seriously been hitting my head off the walls with this car

 

[CordobaGeo]

Hi i hope you are still a active member of this group. I have the same problem with my blower with the exception that one cold early morning on the way to work heating keeping me warm I had to pull over due to my car filling up with smoke. It was the blower fusee so I removed this and it broke the fuse pins away from the wire. Could you please tell me exactly how you wired yours to the cigarette lighter as I need to check if I have cured my issues with the fuse box and the blower. Thank you. Seriously been hitting my head off the walls with this car

Hi! Sorry to hear you also have a problem.
To make the wire to connect the lighter power to the blower I had used a lighter plug from a non working car vacuum cleaner. As it has been some time since I did that I don't recall if I connected both wires from the lighter or just the one to the blower. ( the other was the ground)

But I am 99% sure that I have found what caused this problem. And the source of this problem was not the Blower, was not the resistor pack, was not the fuse!

It was a relay!!!

The smoke that you talked about do you know where it came from? Did it came from the fuse No36 ( that's the blower 's fuse if I recall correctly )
I find it very strange for a fuse to create smoke....

I am wondering if the smoke didn't come from the fuse but the relay got overheated and melt...

Could you please provide some more details regarding what happened?

I will look if I can find this lighter cable I made and maybe send you a picture....

 

[Ibizasportdavey]

ChrisBoom I have been having a similar problem. When I start my car the blower always work but if I turn off the engine n times for a few minutes after driving for some time when I start it again the n time fresh air blower is not working. n = 1,2,3...
Similar to what lee_fr200 had

Like you I checked the plug that goes to the blower and it didn't had any current. Which made me think that it was not the blower. So I got a second hand resistor pack and a clima display (a mechanic suggested it was the clima unit which failed). So I changed them and you know how hard is to change the resistor (thyristor to be accurate) but the problem remained. Also I had checked a ground cable which is behind the gear box, but this was also OK.
Then I read on your post that you had also checked the plug that goes to the blower and there was no current and that your blower was dead! Unfortunately I was not that lucky to have a dead blower. When there is an intermittent error it is always harder to fix!

I intend to make a cable that will connect the cigarette lighter to the blower, so next time the blower stops working, remove the plug from the blower and power the blower from the cigarette lighter. If the blower doesn’t work I would have finally found the faulty part after months of searching!
Can you please verify if changing the blower fixed the problem?

Hi thankyou for your reply. It was the fuse causing the smoke for the blower it has smoulderd my fuse box. I will try to upload a picture for you.... not sure how to upload pics from my phone please bare with me

 

[CordobaGeo]

I was also trying to find a way to post the picture from the cable that I made to connect the lighter to the blower but it looks you can only add a picture as a link...
So I uploaded the image on my blog.

I guess the red and brown color represent + and - ( it had been some time since I made that cable and I don't recall details)
Red is connected to the bottom of the lighter plug and brown on the side.

Have you made you made any progress with your problem?

I was surprised that that the fuse box was smoldered!
I was thinking that in such case the fuse would be "cut" and prevent it from happening.

 

[Ibizasportdavey]

Please let me know if you can see the pics..... if I put a fuse to both wires my blower still works

 

[Ibizasportdavey]

Not really made any progress as when I put a fuse to both wires it still blows the fuses but not unill they are melting away. Never had a issue like this before grr

 

[CordobaGeo]

I am thinking that the blower might draw too much current for some reason. Maybe something that doesn't let it spin freely? Did you notice any difference at air speed that comes out of the vents?

Which are the numbers of the fuses that have this problem?
Did you find the label/card at the fuse box that tells you what each fuse is for?
Before you experience this melt down has the blower ever given you and problems?

Does the clima gives you any error code? You press two buttons on the clima and you can see on the screen the error codes. You can use the right knob to go to previous/next error code.
( I don't recall which two buttons you have to press but I believe that if you do a small search on google you will find it)


There is a device, it looks like a CPU cooler and you can see it if I recall correctly if you remove the cabin filter and look inside with a light. It's a bitch to get your head down there! Unfortunately you can't take it out from there.

The wires that go to this device come from the climatronic and also from the fuse box.
The two wires that leave from this device go to the blower.
Each time we increase or decrease the air speed from the clima the clima tells this device to adjust it.
If I recall correctly I had connected on this device the wires that come from the clima and the wires from the lighter to provide power.

( I think, from the wires that go to this device the ones that provide the power are thicker)

My blower was working and I could control the air speed from the clima.

The fuse for the blower is no 36. Have you checked with a multimeter if there is continuity between the right pin ( this one goes to the CPU cooler looking device) of that fuse and a metal part on the car (ground)

( instead of changing the fuse box you can use two free sockets on it )