Only half the vents are blowing

Hey guys,

I'm having an issue with my A/C (havn't tested with heat, cause it is hot outside). The middle two air vents don't blow air even when it is on max cooling. They did start working for about a day and a half about a month ago, but I have not idea why they started working or why they stopped working again. Thinking maybe loose wiring, or something of that sort. Have any of you guys heard of this issue? And are there certain things I can try before bringing it to get it fixed?

 

Andyprius: definitely checked that. They are open.
Hal: Not sure what that is. I'll look it up and see.

Also I know the cabin air filter is clear

 

This is something the mechanic at the dealer suggested. And actually went out and dinked with it at no cost to see if it worked. But, alas, it did not.

I played with that some today. It doesn't seem to change my situation. I can hear something click back in the dash somewhere when I press that button (assuming some sort of gateway switch redirecting the airflow). It clicks both when I press it to turn on defrost and when I turn it off. However, it did lead to an interesting discovery. The window vent (the one defrost uses to blow air on the window) is always blowing weather defrost is on or not.

 

I had to bring my car in for 90k service so I have them taking a look at it now.

 

So the story is, there is a motor that moves it all back and forth and it is knocked off track. 3 hours labor @ $100 to fix, eff that. Definitely not worth $300. Now I just have to figure out how to take the dash apart myself so I can do it.

 

Oh man you guys! Thanks for the help. Super busy week ahead of me, might be able to play with it next weekend. -Randy

 

Ok guys, I was finally able to play with it today. KoolingIT thanks for the picture it was very helpful to see. I could use a bit more help though. Would anybody be willing to post a video of how it is supposed to move when it is working properly? I'm not so good at figuring things out but I'm super awesome at comparisons! I'm going to go out there and dick with it some, see what I come up with.


What I notice is that attached to the piece shown in the other thread is a bar (circled in the image below) and it seems to be getting jammed and not sliding correctly along the piece further up in there not shown in this image. Now it could be that THAT piece is jammed because whatever it is connected to is jammed, but who knows.

 

Attached is a video of how mine is acting. There is the black box which pops around which I feel might be of particular interest.

 

update
I dove under my dash again tonight, and found that white piece in the other thread had completely sliped off it's track. However, I think it is due to the black motor that rotates it being stuck therefore forcing it into slipping off it's track.

My guess is that the trick is to set the settings on the computer controller to be the same as where the three pins are set (going to take some time and experimentation) then when those are set manually to match the computer/motor then pop the white piece on that connects the motor to the three pins.

It's all very difficult because I can only get one hand in there to work AND I don't know where the pins are supposed to be in accordance to any setting (which I imagine is the hardest part).

So, if anyone has any resource to point me to that will indicate or help me deduce the location of the pins in reference to what setting are on the computer, that would seem to help me very much.

Thanks.