I have a 2003 Pontiac Grand Prix with a dual zone AC. Driver side and Passenger Side.
Nothing but hot air is blowing through the Driver Side while the Passenger side is blowing cold air.
I am hoping it is a fuse problem, and not something that requires servicing.
Well, did you check the fuses?
I have checked the fuses which look like they are connected to the heating and AC system.
Visual inspection of the fuses look OK.
But there is no key to fuse box diagram. I don’t know what the BTSI fuse is, but Shade tree Mechanics might know, and the SIR and DRL etc.
UFR, Searching the internet, it looks like my problem might be the Blend Door Actuator.
Probably not a fuse since that wouldn’t cause only one side to quit working. It’s most likely a blend door issue. The blend door is what controls the proportion of hot and cold air getting blown through the vents, and since your car has the dual zone HVAC it has two of them.
Most likely, the electric motor that moves the blend door has just gone bad, although if you’re very lucky it could just be stuck from not being moved during the winter. You might try moving the temp up and down a few times to see if you can work it loose. Otherwise, the actuator motor will probably need to be replaced. The part probably isn’t too expensive, but the labor can get expensive from having to pull the dash apart to get to it.
What GreasyJack said. Definitely not a fuse, almost certainly blend door related.
I also think that it will turnout to be blend door related. In our Buick we had the same problem. This problem became apparent in the spring time.
It turned out that the gear that moves the door is made out of plastic. Over time the plastic became brittle and the gear cracked. This in turn jammed the blend door. The part was $10.00 and, IIRC, five hours labor. I did the job myself and while I got lucky with the time factor, it still took me 2.5 hours to complete this repair. It is a known issue for the Buick model cars. I have done this repair many times (5) and the time average for me is 3.25 hours.
While I hope that this is not your problem, If I were a betting man, I would bet that this is indeed your problem.
IHTH, 48.
Thanks everyone, yes, I think it is the Blend Door Actuator.
I am going to try to find someone that won’t charge megabucks to fix a $10 part.
I think I could do it if I had better eyes.
I’m fine with your wanting to get an attractive price on this repair, but please don’t stoop to the ridiculous illogic of thinking that just because the part itself is inexpensive then the repair as a whole should be inexpensive. If a part is buried where it takes a lot of work to get to it, then paying for that work is what the customer faces if he wants it fixed. Whether it’s a 50¢ part or a $1,000 part is immaterial to what the labor charge is.
I agree with Gary T. Yes, the part is inexpensive, but it is indeed buried in behind the dashboard. The labor is the expensive part. Unless you have small hands and arms, it is a tight fit. I am not small and it is a bear for me to do. I usually remove the passenger side seat and lay in its space to do this job.
I would not do it for less then 4.5 hours shop rate. Perhaps some starving mechanic will do it for less. Although I always wonder about the quality of work from a"starving" mechanic. If he/she does quality work, they will not be starving. IME only mechanics that do sloppy work, or who abuse drugs or alcohol or other employees, are unemployed. This last is just MHO. I am sure that there are a few exceptions to this rule.
IHTH, 48.
:mad: Dealership said 7.5 hours of labor…:eek:
Looks like I am going to close off the drivers side vents and divert the passenger side vents to my side of the car.
Thanks for the help everyone.
If you live in a climate where you don’t get sudden cold snaps, you could potentially bypass the heater core. Just unhook the heater hoses, drain the core, and run the inlet hose from the engine directly into the return port. On most cars the hot air goes through the AC evaporator before it goes through the heater core, so if the heater core isn’t hot, you should still get nice frosty air even with the jammed blend door.
If you wanted to get really fancy (but not so fancy as to fix it correctly, of course!) you could even put a valve in so you could switch the flow from the heater core to your bypass line. On older cars, moving the temperature control all the way to cool used to do exactly that-- they’d cut off the coolant flow to the heater core so you didn’t have a blazing hot core by the passenger’s legs on hot days.
Of course, unless you want to do it yourself you’ll probably need to find 48Willys’s druggie mechanics to agree to do it.
I think when they build a car they start with little cheap parts and then build the whole car around them.
My gf had that happen to her a few years back. She had the passenger side on heat, and her side on AC. Just sayin.