I drove into town yesterday, and the demister was working fine on the windsceen on the slowest fan setting. Before returning, the car had heavily steamed up from stationary occupation, so I used the fastest fan setting, but the screen never cleared or stayed clear after wiping, and I noticed hardly any air was coming out of the screen vents.
Tried all variations of the controls to get air on the screen, but nothing. Air blasts out of the other vents OK, so fan is fine.
I took out the radio and glove box to gain some access to the pipes but could find nothing out of place.
If anyone has experienced this fault and managed a fix that hopefully didn't involve the nightmare of removing the entire facia, I'd be very grateful to hear of it.
Xantia windscreen demist has failed
Moderator: RichardW
As you turn the fan up can you hear it blowing faster? and if so is it still blowing out of any of the lower vents normally (try moving the air direction lever about with your hand down by your leg), finally does the air direction lever move too easily across any of the settings, specifically the de-mist one?, this is a sure sign one of the flap cables has come adrift. Also worth checking for a build up of leaves where the air is drawn in (lift the bonnet and look in the gulley where the wiper motor and stuff is)
Dom
Dom
To answer points made, in order:
It can't be a coolant problem because apart from the level being OK, hot air is delivered to the other vents, but no or very little air emerges from the windscreen vents.
I had a leaking heater matrix on my old Carlton (twice!) and so know what that's like for blowing steam at the screen. This isn't what's happening here.
The fan blows faster as you turn it up, just as it should, and it blows strongly from the lower vents which also must rule out inlet blockage.
A flap cable seemed the likeliest explanation to me, but this is where I end up with Nikolaymk's question. I can't see what happens inside the cable sleeve, nor where the cable goes to in the heater assembly. The Haynes manual warns that removing the heater control assembly is difficult and best entrusted to Citroen which is just the kind of help you buy manuals for of course!
I was hoping it might be a common problem like the fuel pipe splitting behind the engine apparently is, and wasn't at all nice to fix!
It can't be a coolant problem because apart from the level being OK, hot air is delivered to the other vents, but no or very little air emerges from the windscreen vents.
I had a leaking heater matrix on my old Carlton (twice!) and so know what that's like for blowing steam at the screen. This isn't what's happening here.
The fan blows faster as you turn it up, just as it should, and it blows strongly from the lower vents which also must rule out inlet blockage.
A flap cable seemed the likeliest explanation to me, but this is where I end up with Nikolaymk's question. I can't see what happens inside the cable sleeve, nor where the cable goes to in the heater assembly. The Haynes manual warns that removing the heater control assembly is difficult and best entrusted to Citroen which is just the kind of help you buy manuals for of course!
I was hoping it might be a common problem like the fuel pipe splitting behind the engine apparently is, and wasn't at all nice to fix!