Just returned from a 3,000 mile one-week trip down the length of the Appalachians and back. Ironically, I needed the heater for the southern extreme of the trip, given a freakish behaviour of the jet-stream this past week. The temperatures rose steadily as I returned northward. Frost on the car in the morning in Georgia, then, three days later, I'm crossing back into Canada in shirtsleeves!

But when I did need the heater I discovered that something's gone wrong with one of the vents when the fan is set to the top-down mode. The vent that sits just in front of the two o'clock position on the steering wheel does not allow warm air (or cold air with the AC on, I suspect) to flow when the top-down setting is selected. Oddly, that vent does work when the setting is moved to the other slections (such as "head-and-feet").

I'll ask my dealer's expert tech about it, but I'm not optimistic he'll have a clue. Has anyone had any experience with malfunctioning air vents? Any suggestions on tips to offer the tech?

-- Dave Allen

 

I think that is normal operation of that mode. Both of are cars are the same, I think it is to concentrate the air in the center of the car and not let it "escape" out the sides.

 

RS1,

Read the manual before embarassing yourself in front of the tech...this is designed behavior. Since there is so much air turbulance at the top of the cockpit with the top down, the air is redirected to lower vents.

Not to say the techie would have a clue about the right answer either, but this is somewhat akin to taking your baby in because the passenger window won't roll down...only to find you've hit the lock-out switch. Suddenly that sheepish grin comes over your face and you tuck tail and run...

 

Well, okay, I'll re-read the manual, but I am certain that when I last needed the heater (when I first acquired the car last February), that vent served to keep my right hand warm when set in the top-down mode. And besides, how do we explain the left-hand vent (at the 10 o'clock position on the steering wheel) providing hot air at that setting? If the left-hand one does, why wouldn't the right-hand one?

 

Nope, sorry, but according to my manual, both Colin and MacGyver are mistaken. (Or the Canadian manual differs from the U.S. one.) On page 87 of mine the description next to the top-down symbol states that "Air flows from the center vents in the dashboard above the audio system, the vents on both sides of the instrument panel and from the floor vents". It's the "vents on both sides of the instrument panel" I'm referring to -- more specifically the right-hand side one of them. There ain't nuttin comin out of that sucker when the top-down mode is selected.

I take it no one who has bothered to read this thread has encountered this problem.

-- D

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RoadSurfer1
[B]Nope, sorry, but according to my manual, both Colin and MacGyver are mistaken.