Some maintenance done and still no heat, and Winter is on the doorstep...

Hi All

I have done a bit of maintenance to catch up on some long needed (so it seemed) things..... The problems I was aiming to fix were/are - a wet passenger footwell (driver side ok) and lack of heat from the heater.

Following the instructions on RangeRovers.net, today I did the following:

1. Removed the plenum cover, cleaned out any old filter bits and leaves etc, and replaced the filter, it was all pretty clean in there anyway, but the old filter was a gonner....

2. Underneath I cleared out the air con drain holes either side of the transmission. One was clear, the passenger side had some debris come out.

3. Checked the pollen filters, both sides. Passenger side was wet so I guessed that is where the water had come from what with all the recent rain. Cleaned them out, they were not bad, dried, re-installed and re-sealed with some black gutter sealant on both covers.

So fingers crossed the wet passenger footwell has gone, or going once it dries out. Problem is, still no heat.

HVAC has a book symbol on it, how can I get the errors read without spending £$£$£$£?

Do not think it is a blend motor fault, when I press the buttons at the bottom of the HVAC unit, I can hear motor movement and the air does shift between footwell, centre and windscreen.

Any ideas from you guys? Heater sensors or cabin temp sensors?

Cheers

can you hear the fans running when you turn up the fan speed knob?if not it could be worth checking the two relays in the engine fusebox.

Hi, yes fans are blowing, although not strong through the centre. Hitting the Prog button demists and the windscreen heaters work.
I was wondering fuses......... Will check tomorrow.
Thanks

So you have no hot air and a you have an indicated fault ? Sounds like the hot air distribution motor.

Sounds like a likely culprit. Is this motor one of the famous blend motors?
If not, is it easy to get to?
I wonder if it could still be a fuse for this motor..........

Thanks

JamesBB said:

Is this motor one of the famous blend motors?

Click to expand...

Yes it is.

JamesBB said:

If not, is it easy to get to?

Click to expand...

No its not.

JamesBB said:

I wonder if it could still be a fuse for this motor..........

Click to expand...

No sir.

Well that is all encouraging stuff......
I found that waiting a while with the heat on 25 and fan on a medium setting, I do get some heat through the footwell vents. Not hot, but warmish.

Still getting water in the passenger footwell, fingers crossed it is just the last of what was already in the system leaking out and not fresh rain water leaking in.

Hmmmmm.

Good news at least, it seems the rain is no longer getting in through the pollen filters

Now there speaks an optimist ! How many days have you owned your P38 ?

Still in double figures.
Still no rain inside too, but then still no heaters, just a luke warm breeze.

Just read a thread on the self tapping screw fix to the blend flaps.....
If my dist motor is actually ok and the flaps are stuck, I wonder if this fix will work for me?
Any advice most welcome.
Cheers

See this post if you can.

I have the exact same problem, and I have confirmed it to be the temp blend motor. I too have distribution of air with no problems, good heat at the air heater and good fan speed.

The real question is, there are two independent temp blend motors, for the dual zone climate control, do you have no heat from both sides like me? I need both of the temp blend motors replaced. They are hard to get at, but totally possible. They arent cheap though.

If you are really cheap, you can dodgy it up in the meantime by connecting part of a wire coat hanger to the temp blend flap arm and controlling the heat manually. It looks terrible on such a nice car, but it might stop you freezing to death

Sticking my hand up and moving the blend flaps with the blend motor removed convinced me that the flaps operated freely, so I dont think that is the case in my problem.

Thanks I will check that thread.
I have no change in heat both sides the same. Although I can feel there is a lot of heat there, it just feels like it is all locked in the heater. So can it be both motors failed at the same time, same position? Surely that is unlikely? I thought it must be from the motor that is doing the initial blend of cold/hot air before it gets to the left/right up/down venting via the flaps?

So the flaps, where can you move these by hand to see if they are stuck?

I have just checked a few things.

Blowers off:
I can hear all the flaps move upon pressing each ventilation switch.
Left temp at Lo, then pressing up, I can hear a flap operate between Lo and the next setting. Same going back to Lo.
Right temp at Lo, then pressing up, I can hear nothing at all.
Blowers on:
Air blows through all vents as indicated by the air vent distribution switches.

So this is suspicious on the right hand temp flap opening or not, and the fact that there is no heat out at all, despite feeling it in there somewhere. Once the engine is hot, there is barely luke warm air felt coming through.

Weird.
Now to read that other thread you posted, thanks Glen.
Cheers

Quick update.
I cleaned out the dust and fluff from the temp sensor under the clock. The fan in there now spins too.
I have a noticable increase in heat coming through the vents after just a 3 mile drive. Book still on the screen though, so not the only problem. Longer drive later, see what happens.

OK, still not that warm really. Slightly better.
Drivers side some warmth, passenger side cold.:doh:

Is the carpet still getting wet?

Could it be that the heater matrix has a leak?

ruffday said:

Is the carpet still getting wet?

Could it be that the heater matrix has a leak?

Click to expand...

Carpet is dry now, it was definitely leaking in through the pollen filters. Fixed that now.

Hi JamesBB,
All the issues you discuss I have just had recently and finally got them fixed on Tuesday this week. I had another issue as well. In the end I had a good independent LR workshop fix this for me at reasonable cost.
My problems were:

1. Book symbol on HEVAC
2. Coolant pooling in drivers foot well (temp fix was to add Bars leak to the coolant)
3. Rainwater then pooling in drivers foot well

I decided straight away that I needed the HEVAC fault codes read to properly diagnose the book symbol. Other than the error on the LCD the heating was working fine. At the time the outside temp never got above 3C. I had the guys at RGB land rovers read the fault codes on Testbook for a reasonable £30. It had 6 faults stored relating to blower fans, A/C and the LH blend motor failed, stuck in the hot position. The upshot of this was that a new blend motor was fitted; the blower fan relays and temp sensor were also changed. That fixed the book symbol.

Coolant in the foot well was heater matrix “O” rings and the rainwater was the pollen filter covers. I had RGB do the “O” rings while they were fixing the blend motor. I supplied new “O” rings and 5 litres of pink LR antifreeze. They did the whole job for £240 cash including parts. You can buy individual blend motors made by Valeo who are the OEM suppliers to LR for £75 each, which RGB supplied and fitted for me. I bought new pollen filter covers from Rimmer Bros and fitted them myself to fix the rainwater ingress.

Without getting the fault codes read you are kind of groping in the dark here. Sounds like you have at least one blend motor failed (there are 3 in total). My understanding is that on start-up the system goes through a sort of POST where all the blend motors are cycled though open to closed then back to the setting selected on the HEVAC, each blend motor has a potentiometer on it that reports back its position to the ECU. If a blend motor does not cycle on start-up it’s logged as a fault and the book symbol pops up.
One other error code that was logged on my RR relates possibly to A/C refrigerant loss which is likely to be a faulty condenser. No leaks were evident from the evaporator. I’ll deal with this one in the spring as I don’t need A/C right now.

My advice would be to find someone to read your fault codes first. Then decide if you want to do the repair yourself.

LW…

First warm day of the year, loads of heat from the vents!!!!!!!!!!! AGgggggggggggggggghhh!

Still, will be interesting to see what rain is in the footwell in the morning after this storm...