Hey Folks,
So the Pontiac Vibe with 135k miles I sold to some young friends (twin girls) the ac blower motor completely stopped blowing. It went from fine to dead. No motor noises, or the low speeds giving out.
As the motor didn't start acting up, or making noises, could it be the resistor only?
I was temped to go ahead and buy the fan motor and resistor, but I don't want to replace a good fan.
If I had the car close to me, I could check it out better, hoping you guys have run across this particular failure.
Thanks!
The fact that the motor did not make any noise is irrelevant. Noise would be from a worn bearing which is a different matter than the motor experiencing an internal electrical failure.
In most cases if the resistor goes bad the motor will still work at the highest speed. This may not be the case though if the "resistor" is actually a transistorized control unit. The motor should be checked to see if it is receiving voltage and/or connect it directly to 12V to see if it spins.
Obviously you would also want to check the blower fuse, any relay involved, and test the switch.
@chucktobias Will do, thanks a bunch!
You're welcome! I looked up the "resistor" on rockauto.com and it is a transistor-controlled module rather than an old-school resistor pack. So I would first test the motor directly to see if it's OK and if so work back through the wiring to find the fault.
I had that happen when I had my 1994 BMW 540i. This was 2013. I replaced it with a new blower motor and it worked fine through all speeds. That thing's almost 20 years old. When mine went out, it was 19 years old.
