Rear A/c Woes
 

hello everyone, i am a relatively new member of the board. i have found this site to be an unbelieveable resource for any x5 owner, but i am having a problem that i havent seen an answer to.

i have a 2000 x5 4.4i

the fan comes on when you turn on the rear air, but nothing
(or so little that i cant feel it)comes out of the vents. i have removed the storage tray in the armrest and also removed the "s" shaped tube that connects to the vents. funny thing is, the air coming out of the lower hose is pretty forcefull. i checked the "s" tube itself and it is free of obstruction. any ideas?

thanks for your help

Could be an obstruction in the air vent itself. You might have to remove the console to completely diagnose the problem. You've already removed and checked the air flow at the "S" tube, so it's obviously something in the rear vent. Are you sure you have the vent opened to allow complete air flow?

:xoutpost:

thanks for the response!

i have checked the rear vents and they seem to be clear of any obstruction. maybe the fan has become weak, even though it seems to flow from the bottom hose, maybe its not enough to make it to the vents.

Same problem here with the same exact year/model car... Bump

blocked vent
 

my truck had a black plastic piece behind the vents that was intended to shut the vents down. similar to what you have on the front vents to shut them down. i pushed a screwdriver thru the vents and set the plate to a horizontal position. then the vents worked fine

Sounds like it will work in my car as well. I'm going to try it tonight and I'll let you know tomorrow.

Thanks for sharing.

Problem fixed! Many thanks to you...

I think the flaps just get stuck for some reason, but after carefully using a pen; they're open again and working like new.

Thanks again.

The thumbwheel which operates the fanswitch also has a mechanical link to open and close the vent. It could be that the link has detached leaving the vent closed when the fan is on.

Open the storage compartment and look for two screws just under the lid hinge. Remove these two screws and the vent assembly can be easily drawn out toward the rear seats to check/fix the problem.

I had the opposite problem recently where the vent opened but the fan would not come on - the fanswitch had detached from the thumbwheel.

Brian, I think you're right on about the mechanical link. I'm going to check it next weekend. But so far so good, the rear vents are blowing cold air again; I'm happy.

Within the next 2 months, I'm going to change the spark plugs, belts, water pump, and new tires and it should be good some time. I"ve got just 78,000 miles on it and everything works right now.

Excellent! I was thinking this was the problem as I read the posts. Stay cool. :cool: