Ok, it's gonna be hard to describe this, but if it rings a bell with anyone let me know. I'm finding that while driving with a/c full blast and feeling good, I hear a sound like a flap falling down, and my cooling air is cut to zilch. I can still hear the blower, but nothing's coming out. If I dial in the little arrow **** on the vent full on again, everything's right with the world again. But I have to do this every time I hear that click and "flap" sound.

Anyone experience this, or have an idea to troubleshoot? This one's gonna be a bugger to explain to my SA.

 

I'm not sure if this is related to your issue but I notice changes in air flow with my AC. I have Auto AC and sometimes the air is directed up, down or to the middle for no apparent reason. This only happens when in Auto though. Again, not sure if it relates.

 

No, I don't think so. I have to manually open the a/c vent when this happens.

 

The flap falling down sound is most likely a damper closing. Sounds like you both need to get the a/c controls adjusted. With auto air, the system measures ambient temperatures, sun light and your temp settings and from that decides which dampers to open or close to direct air flow. Sounds like both of yours are misbehaving.

 

Then, in your case, daff, it sounds like the manual damper on that vent is too loose and the air flow forces it shut.

 

I'm not sure it's not supposed to do the changes, the air will be directed to the front, then change to the feet and after several minutes it will direct back to the front. It's almost like sensors are directing air to the areas that need the most cooling at any given moment. Of course, I may be wrong, the late 1960's did a number on me.

 

Perhaps, at certain temps and conditions it does that. I could see, for example, if it is relatively cool, but sunny, that airflow would be changed to address the conflicting conditions. But, if you are tooling along in 85 degree whether, other than fan speed changing, I can't see that it's supposed to do that (and mine doesn't).

 

Yes, exactly. I think I mentioned this in the "Things you didn't know" thread. With the fan on full the vents self close, sometimes. They need a bit more friction in the design. You may find you can keep it from closing if you make sure all the vents are open before going to high fan.

 

Now that you mention it, LynnEl, this didn't happen until I went on the auto air controls. Someone in some thread said to set the auto air at a very low temp and it would work better, and that's what I've been doing. I'll have to try regular controls and see if it happens that way, too.

But you're right, it sounds like something is shutting the vents off, like a damper.

 

This happened to me earlier this week. I'm using the AC everyday this past week as its the first real heat we have had. My wife was in the passenger seat over the weekend as we had gone on a short trip about an hour and a half away. She must have dialed down the air vents on the passenger side part way. When I got in on monday I threw on the AC and dialed the fan up all the way. The rush of air caught the half open vents and slammed them shut, which diverted all the air to the drivers side vents, and they promptly got blown shut too - happened in an instant. Closely paired "slaps" as they shut.

Definitely a little design flaw there - the vents should not blow closed in any circumstance. But you can be sure the dash vents are not motorized in any way and there is no control system opening and closing them.

 

Yeah, but I'll bet it's a b**** to get to them to adjust anything. Probably involves taking the dash off, and my SA isn't likely to participate in this maneuver just for intermittant problems, right?

 

I read thru quick, but did anybody mention that when you have the A/C in circulate for an extended period it will switch to outside air and back automatically? I don't know what the interval is, but it cycles it thru every so often.

 

My problem has been happening without the recirculate feature on.