C5 X7 - In car heating not working

[Chojin]

Hi

I have a 2010 C5 X7 and the in car heating has stopped working

It did this about 12 months ago but sorted itself out ( phew )

Its been fine over Xmas ( and the -10 cold snap ) etc.. but I didn't use the car for a week or so and now I have no heating in the car ( regardless of temp / fan speeds / or using front screen demist )

Having spent a few hours reading the forum , I purchased ( and have just fitted ) a new heater blower resistor

Using this thread as reference : viewtopic.php?t=55875&start=30

I bought the MAHLE BEHR as this was the recommended one

Not the easiest thing to change , but we managed

This has not resolved the issue - so that's rather annoying

BUT - As of yet - I have no way of working out if there is something else wrong - or its a faulty part ?

I have tried to look at removing the actual blower unit - but I don't know if this is possible without taking the entire dash board apart ?

Someone suggested to run 12v to the blower to see if it could be forced into life ?

So this all leads to a few questions :

1 - Is there a way of testing the heater resistor
2 - If I was to apply 12v to the blower - how do you go about actually doing this
3 - Would a diagnostic show where the fault lies

The car is a UK RHD model ( for reference ) and had a new battery fitted about 6 months ago

Thanks for any assistance

Cheers

Stu

[Chojin]

OK - bit of an update

Having done more and more reading we pulled the connector off the heater resistor , connected pins 1 and 3 using a piece of wire , and then started the car

1 - Green/Yellow
3 - Black

Heaters ran at full blast - which to be fair is great news

Pulled the wire off ( whist the blower was running - not sure if this is advisable though ) and it stopped instantly

Turned the car off , re-connected the harness to the resistor and started the car

Blowers now working as expected on all speeds

Fingers crossed this has sorted the issue - I don't know if the resistor was faulty - or if the fan blower was "stuck"

I have read that with lack of use , due the low start speed of the fan it sometimes wont run - maybe triggering a full speed start helps ?!?!

I know this is a long winded write up - but may help someone in the future

Now off to try and sort out why the windscreen washers aren't working !

Thanks

Stu

[admiral51]

Glad you got it sorted Stu and yes it is a common issue with the low power supplied to the blower on starting it and condensation etc can cause it to become sticky, full power by the method you did helps kick start it into life.
As for your windscreen washers i would check the joints in the pipe work. a frozen jet can lead to pressure build up and the joints get separated. The pump maybe working but fluid not getting to the jets

[Sloppysod]

Hi Stu, yes well done for sorting the heater resistor issue.
Learnt something today about possible causes of faults, low speed particularly, as I have suspected mine is playing up sometimes and then suddenly gets better.

[Chojin]

Hi

Got the washers working now too - we fixed/bodged them last year as the pipe split near the bonnet hinge

Ended up changing all the pipe work after the Y junction to normal NON ridged pipe

Had to blow the nozzles out as it was them that were clogged

Back to the heaters .. they are still working so that's good

I forgot to add that the actual resister was a pain to rotate to allow you to remove - so I used a 19mm spanner to help rotate both to loosen and to re-tighten - use it across the protruding flat which I assume is there to help you rotate it

I was going to use pliers - but there isn't a load of room in there

Cheers

Stu

[Chojin]

Car been sat for 2 weeks over Xmas ... and they have stopped working again ... hopefully this will work again

[Chojin]

...and now working again !!!

[JRid]

had same problem, just charge up battary or buy new one and pofffff problem gone, sad that only i alredy bought new fan and heating module FML, who would knew it dosent work when battery is like littlebit week