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DIY: HVAC In-dash motor cycling & whirring noises
10 Attachment(s)
Ever since I bought my B6 two years ago, these flap motors have been driving me crazy. For some reason, Audi didn't wire the HVAC to the ignition switch so these motors keeping whirring and cycling away when the potentiometers (pot) aren't sending the right voltages to the HVAC unit even when the ignition is turned off.
This is caused by the pots (contained inside of the motors units) accumulating dust that prevents proper readings (dead spots). Aside from replacing the motor units, the best fix is to remove each one and clean the pot contacts. VAG-COM codes I pulled to determine which motors are acting up: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Address 08: Auto HVAC Labels: 8E0-820-043.lbl Part No: 8E0 820 043 L Component: A4 Klimaautomat 1116 Coding: 00000 Shop #: WSC 63351 VCID: 2A50CA3CD6B1254EEA7-513C 2 Faults Found: 01272 - Positioning Motor for Central Flap (V70) 41-10 - Blocked or No Voltage - Intermittent 00604 - Potentiometer Positioning Motor for Air Flow Flap (G113) 30-10 - Open or Short to Plus - Intermittent ------------------------------------------------------------------------- V70 is the Air Flap Control motor assembly mounted on the blower motor housing behind the glove box. It's the one with the light blue wheel. Since I was in there, I decided the clean the other (Air recirculation flap control) motor assembly too since it's right beside it. It's relatively easy if you are handy. Here are some of the tools you need: - Digital Volt Meter (DVM) - Precision (Jewelers) screwdriver set - Isopropyl (Rubbing) alcohol - Cotton swap (Q-Tip) Remove the glove box and motor assembly from the duct work. I won't describe it here because it's self explanatory. If it's not, you shouldn't even be attempting this procedure yourself. Make sure the motors have stopped completely before you remove them. This is so you can put it back later and have everything lined up in their resting positions. Again, this may take a while because they have a mind of their own, even with the key removed from the ignition. The hardest part is getting inside the motor assembly. It just takes patience and a light hand. *** WARNING: It's very easy to break the motor assembly tabs so be careful. *** I have found that it's easier to attack the smaller tab first (see Pic). Once this is separated, un-clasping the remaining tabs should be a cinch. Once the half casing has been removed, you can see the motor, gears and the pot (see pic). Before you do anything, mark the pot's initial position (see pic) so you can put it back in the same setting when re-assembling. Now carefully pry up on the pot to remove it from the assembly - it should pop out very easily. Since this is a center tap pot, meaning the center pin is the varying part of the resistor, one side's resistance is the difference of the other side (see pic). You'll figure this out when you play with the measurements. Across the outer pins, it's should be fixed at 5Kohm. Each leg with reference to the center should read between a couple hundred ohms to about 5Kohm. To check for dead spots in the pot, simply measure the resistance across the center pin to one of the outer pins while SLOWLY turning the pot one way or the other. Once you get a reading, keep turning slowly and you should see the meter jump around if there are dead spots. If you're using a digital meter, it may read OL or something like that because it's telling you that you're measuring an open circuit. Now clean the pot (see pic). With a very small precision screwdriver, pry the pot open (be careful not to pry too much or you'll break the pot) and take a cotton swap soaked with rubbing alcohol and rub it into the crack. You don't need too much rubbing alcohol, just enough to get a drop inside of the pot. Now give it a shake to saturate the inside with it and turn the pot a few of full turns each way to work in the rubbing alcohol. Don't do this too fast as you may induce additional wear on the pot. Once the rubbing alcohol has been worked in, let it dry a bit and measure the pot again. If done properly, it should give you a nice continuous reading between the center and one of the outer pins. Now measure the other outer pin and you should see the same smooth continuous reading. There shouldn't be any dead spots now unless the pot internals has completely worn away. If this is the case, there is no other choice than to replace the whole unit. If all your post cleaning measurements are good, re-assemble the motor assembly but make sure all the pins on the pot are lined up straight (not bent) with the motor pins. This will ruin your day if you plug it back into the car and bend or break the pins if they're not lined up. The last step is to re-calibrate the motors so your HVAC unit can get a handle on the new readings. You may or may not need this last step but if you have access to VAG-COM, why not?!? You might as well clear the old HVAC codes while you're doing the calibration. See this VAG-COM calibration taken from another post (not mine): -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok, I managed to find the basic setting for all the flaps. It's located at: Controller 08 - Auto HVAC Basic Settings - 04 Group 001 Go! There are about 10 values that come up but around 6 of them go through a cycle. You can hear them all moving to the upper range and find their limits and then they all move to the lower range and then they all reset back to 0. This takes about 60 seconds. The aircon stops while it's doing this and starts up again once completed. I went back into the Fault codes and it now shows No faults. Seems to have worked but I will have to put it to the test tomorrow when I drive the car to work. I'll update as to how it went, if I hear any more noises or if the fault codes come back up. Had same issue and was able to clear it by using Ross Tech to go to AC module - basic settings and having module perform a recalibration. took 2 minutes to move all flaps to min and max and find new zeros and then the noise and codes have been gone for 2 days now! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good luck! I'm trying to help other Audi owners with my own experiences, so if you find this post is of any value, please let me know with a response or a PM. It's only fair because of the time and effort it takes to do a proper write up. In other words, if I don't know my contribution is helping others, I may not have the incentive to post additional fixes. Thanks. |
Re: DIY: HVAC flap motor potentiometer cleaning
I don't have this problem but thanks for putting some good content out there!
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Re: DIY: HVAC flap motor potentiometer cleaning
4 Attachment(s)
It's been a week since I did these flap units and so far so good. When I went to re-calibrate the motor flaps with VAG-COM, I found another one that needs attention:
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Address 08: Auto HVAC Labels: 8E0-820-043.lbl Part No: 8E0 820 043 L Component: A4 Klimaautomat 1116 Coding: 00000 Shop #: WSC 63351 VCID: 2A50CA3CD6B1254EEA7-513C 1 Fault Found: 01809 - Actuating Motor for Temperature Flap; Left ( V158 ) 41-10 - Blocked or No Voltage - Intermittent ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Needless to say, I needed to get this resolved as well. So I removed the drivers side knee panel and took a look at it. I wasn't too impressed at where it was located. It looked like a PITA and after spending about 3 hours, it ended up to be a PITA. I had to remove the accelerator pedal which is held in with 3 hex bolts (size: 5 mm). You may be able to remove the motor unit without removing the accelerator pedal but I doubt it. There's 2 up top and 1 at the bottom. The hardest one to remove was the upper right one. The flap motor unit has a red arm and held in with 3 screws (6mm) much like the other motor units described before. This is pretty challenging as well because there's no space to work under there. Once the screws are removed, the red arm is still attached to the flap arm so you need to line up the key slots before you can remove it (see picture). *** Again, make sure you know the position of the flap arm before removing the motor unit so you know how to re-assemble it properly. *** Once you remove it, the same procedure applies to clean the potentiometer inside the motor unit as described before. FYI, this pot's value is approximately 4.3Kohm if you really needed to know. It's a lot of work and lots of knuckle scraping but in the end it works very well if you are willing to put in the effort, especially this particular one. I'm willing to bet that my AC and heater will work better after all of this because these damn flaps won't be bouncing around opening and closing when they want to. Other than the noises they make, I haven't had decent heat in the winter nor decent cold air in the summer so I'm pretty confident these fixes should bear fruit. |
Re: DIY: HVAC In-dash motor cycling & whirring noises
Originally Posted by veedubb
(Post 191122)
Ever since I bought my B6 two years ago, these flap motors have been driving me crazy. For some reason, Audi didn't wire the HVAC to the ignition switch so these motors keeping whirring and cycling away when the potentiometers (pot) aren't sending the right voltages to the HVAC unit even when the ignition is turned off.
This is caused by the pots (contained inside of the motors units) accumulating dust that prevents proper readings (dead spots). Aside from replacing the motor units, the best fix is to remove each one and clean the pot contacts. VAG-COM codes I pulled to determine which motors are acting up: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Address 08: Auto HVAC Labels: 8E0-820-043.lbl Part No: 8E0 820 043 L Component: A4 Klimaautomat 1116 Coding: 00000 Shop #: WSC 63351 VCID: 2A50CA3CD6B1254EEA7-513C 2 Faults Found: 01272 - Positioning Motor for Central Flap (V70) 41-10 - Blocked or No Voltage - Intermittent 00604 - Potentiometer Positioning Motor for Air Flow Flap (G113) 30-10 - Open or Short to Plus - Intermittent ------------------------------------------------------------------------- V70 is the Air Flap Control motor assembly mounted on the blower motor housing behind the glove box. It's the one with the light blue wheel. Since I was in there, I decided the clean the other (Air recirculation flap control) motor assembly too since it's right beside it. It's relatively easy if you are handy. Here are some of the tools you need: - Digital Volt Meter (DVM) - Precision (Jewelers) screwdriver set - Isopropyl (Rubbing) alcohol - Cotton swap (Q-Tip) Remove the glove box and motor assembly from the duct work. I won't describe it here because it's self explanatory. If it's not, you shouldn't even be attempting this procedure yourself. Make sure the motors have stopped completely before you remove them. This is so you can put it back later and have everything lined up in their resting positions. Again, this may take a while because they have a mind of their own, even with the key removed from the ignition. The hardest part is getting inside the motor assembly. It just takes patience and a light hand. *** WARNING: It's very easy to break the motor assembly tabs so be careful. *** I have found that it's easier to attack the smaller tab first (see Pic). Once this is separated, un-clasping the remaining tabs should be a cinch. Once the half casing has been removed, you can see the motor, gears and the pot (see pic). Before you do anything, mark the pot's initial position (see pic) so you can put it back in the same setting when re-assembling. Now carefully pry up on the pot to remove it from the assembly - it should pop out very easily. Since this is a center tap pot, meaning the center pin is the varying part of the resistor, one side's resistance is the difference of the other side (see pic). You'll figure this out when you play with the measurements. Across the outer pins, it's should be fixed at 5Kohm. Each leg with reference to the center should read between a couple hundred ohms to about 5Kohm. To check for dead spots in the pot, simply measure the resistance across the center pin to one of the outer pins while SLOWLY turning the pot one way or the other. Once you get a reading, keep turning slowly and you should see the meter jump around if there are dead spots. If you're using a digital meter, it may read OL or something like that because it's telling you that you're measuring an open circuit. Now clean the pot (see pic). With a very small precision screwdriver, pry the pot open (be careful not to pry too much or you'll break the pot) and take a cotton swap soaked with rubbing alcohol and rub it into the crack. You don't need too much rubbing alcohol, just enough to get a drop inside of the pot. Now give it a shake to saturate the inside with it and turn the pot a few of full turns each way to work in the rubbing alcohol. Don't do this too fast as you may induce additional wear on the pot. Once the rubbing alcohol has been worked in, let it dry a bit and measure the pot again. If done properly, it should give you a nice continuous reading between the center and one of the outer pins. Now measure the other outer pin and you should see the same smooth continuous reading. There shouldn't be any dead spots now unless the pot internals has completely worn away. If this is the case, there is no other choice than to replace the whole unit. If all your post cleaning measurements are good, re-assemble the motor assembly but make sure all the pins on the pot are lined up straight (not bent) with the motor pins. This will ruin your day if you plug it back into the car and bend or break the pins if they're not lined up. The last step is to re-calibrate the motors so your HVAC unit can get a handle on the new readings. You may or may not need this last step but if you have access to VAG-COM, why not?!? You might as well clear the old HVAC codes while you're doing the calibration. See this VAG-COM calibration taken from another post (not mine): -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok, I managed to find the basic setting for all the flaps. It's located at: Controller 08 - Auto HVAC Basic Settings - 04 Group 001 Go! There are about 10 values that come up but around 6 of them go through a cycle. You can hear them all moving to the upper range and find their limits and then they all move to the lower range and then they all reset back to 0. This takes about 60 seconds. The aircon stops while it's doing this and starts up again once completed. I went back into the Fault codes and it now shows No faults. Seems to have worked but I will have to put it to the test tomorrow when I drive the car to work. I'll update as to how it went, if I hear any more noises or if the fault codes come back up. Had same issue and was able to clear it by using Ross Tech to go to AC module - basic settings and having module perform a recalibration. took 2 minutes to move all flaps to min and max and find new zeros and then the noise and codes have been gone for 2 days now! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good luck! I'm trying to help other Audi owners with my own experiences, so if you find this post is of any value, please let me know with a response or a PM. It's only fair because of the time and effort it takes to do a proper write up. In other words, if I don't know my contribution is helping others, I may not have the incentive to post additional fixes. Thanks. I know that the thread is a bit old but can you please tell us step by step how you did the calibration? I was getting errors when I tried to do what you did and now I have an error code 01087 and a ticking noise behind the dash which I believe its one of the flaps Your help will be much appreciated. Thanks |
Re: DIY: HVAC In-dash motor cycling & whirring noises
Originally Posted by jnins5
(Post 193765)
Hey there
I know that the thread is a bit old but can you please tell us step by step how you did the calibration? I was getting errors when I tried to do what you did and now I have an error code 01087 and a ticking noise behind the dash which I believe its one of the flaps Your help will be much appreciated. Thanks I did exactly what I had posted using Vagcom: Controller 08 - Auto HVAC Basic Settings - 04 Group 001 Go! I didn't get any errors when I ran through this procedure. I don't know what the error you got is but could it be the pot wasn't put back in the right way on one of your flap modules? I'm assuming you took them apart to clean them as described. |
Re: DIY: HVAC In-dash motor cycling & whirring noises
Originally Posted by veedubb
(Post 193779)
Hi.
I did exactly what I had posted using Vagcom: Controller 08 - Auto HVAC Basic Settings - 04 Group 001 Go! I didn't get any errors when I ran through this procedure. I don't know what the error you got is but could it be the pot wasn't put back in the right way on one of your flap modules? I'm assuming you took them apart to clean them as described. When I hit go the 1st small window comes up with "ERROR" and the other 3 with "N/A". I can hear and feel the air moving through the vents but that's it. Doesn't do anything else... I haven't cleaned the motors yet as I want to do the calibration first because I have an S5 and by the looks of it its PITA to remove them... Any suggestions? Thanks |
Re: DIY: HVAC flap motor potentiometer cleaning
It seems this problem still exists, even with a newer model like your S5.
I would suggest removing some panels to see what exactly is making the clicking first. The error you're getting may be a compatability issue with older Vagcom software interfacing with a newer car. Or the same procedure in your newer car is found elsewhere in Vagcom and the steps I've outlined for my older B6 (2003 A4, 1.8TQ) doesn't apply to your chassis. I suspect it may be the latter. Check with Ross Tech for the correct procedure for your car. |
Re: DIY: HVAC flap motor potentiometer cleaning
Originally Posted by veedubb
(Post 193781)
It seems this problem still exists, even with a newer model like your S5.
I would suggest removing some panels to see what exactly is making the clicking first. The error you're getting may be a compatability issue with older Vagcom software interfacing with a newer car. Or the same procedure in your newer car is found elsewhere in Vagcom and the steps I've outlined for my older B6 (2003 A4, 1.8TQ) doesn't apply to your chassis. I suspect it may be the latter. Check with Ross Tech for the correct procedure for your car. I ve already submitted the issue to Ross-Tech because there are no labels for this module and I am still waiting... Looks like there are no side panels...They come off with the dash? I can send a picture later. I can only remove a panel which is under the glove box and maybe removing the glove box will be able to see the motors? Anyone can shed some light on this? Thanks |
Re: DIY: HVAC flap motor potentiometer cleaning
I just saw that you have a label for your HVAC and I don't...That's why maybe the calibration failed...
I could post a video with the ticking noise but I am not allowed to upload any MOV files |
Re: DIY: HVAC flap motor potentiometer cleaning
Thanks for posting this Wayne. This information is still quite helpful
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