2011 Regal: A/C misbehaving

[Benzadmiral]

Oh, it still blows nice and cold, especially on Recirc. But yesterday evening, I pressed the Auto button. At first the air came only out of the floor vents; I could feel the cold breeze on my ankles. I had to press the Upper fan button to get the air to emerge strongly from the dash vents. I then turned on Recirc, and everything was fine.

However, when going home later, I had the Recirc function on. Getting a little cold, I turned the Recirc off, with the fan speed at about 4 out of 6 speeds. The dash area let out with a horrible thrumming moan, as though a large slow animal were caught in there. Hurriedly I turned the whole system off. After about two minutes, I turned it back on, and it moaned again, with almost no air coming from the dash vents . . . until I engaged the Recirc. Then the air blew normally.

Coming in this morning, I tested the system, and it behaved as it should. But I'm still concerned, especially here in Da Swamp, where A/C is like life support on a starship: You gotta have it.

Since the Recirc function means the flaps that prevent outside air from entering the cabin are closed (right?), this sounds like the flaps are not opening for the Outside function. (I had a similar problem once with my Merc W126, where going uphill the flaps fell shut, and didn't open until the car was level.)

Has this happened to anyone with a similar car? If so, might it be covered under a CPO warranty? Comments and experiences welcome.

 

[Chris142]

Sounds like a stripped gear in a motor that moves a door.

 

[zach1900]

The system will always use some amount of outside air. Even on recirculation.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: zach1900
The system will always use some amount of outside air. Even on recirculation.

Well, sure . . . but it's not supposed to moan like a wildebeest in heat and refuse to blow air out of the vents!

 

[Hokiefyd]

Yeah -- you've got an air blend door that's not working right. It could be a sticking or binding door, or it could be a bad motor with stripped gears (or both...maybe one followed the other).

I appreciate completely automatic HVAC systems (both of our cars have it), but there are additional things to break on them. I have to take the hot/cold blend door motor off of our MDX and clean the internals every year or so. A little bit of grease or grit gets on the potentiometer "platter" in the motor and it causes it to not know its position...so you can hear the motor rapidly twitching back and forth as it tries to find its "spot". Little annoyances like this are part of owning complex vehicles as they age.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Ah, well. Off to the dealer, as the car is still under CPO warranty. Fortunately it still cools on Recirc!

 

[Benzadmiral]

Update, all,

The dealer was unable to find any problems; no trouble codes were stored -- apparently the car stores a code if something like this goes wrong -- and the HVAC works normally, as it has since Tuesday morning. 'Twas worth the time to have them check it, though.

 

[Silverado12]

Typical dealer response. I just got my Challenger back from my local indy mechanic and I had a bad recirc door too. It's not a simple job for the mechanic, as my total bill was just under 800 bucks for the recirc door and to fix a leak (bad o-ring) on the hose going to the compressor. Def get that fixed under warranty.