Climate Control Over-Ride?
 

Greetings!

I am helping my sister with an issue with the A/C on her 1998 LeSabre. I searched the forum prior to posting my question but didn't find anything specific to my/her issue.

I should preface my question by stating that we live in the PHX metro area and the A/C is not working. (Just wanted to put the issue in a little bit better perspective... hehe)

Anyway, here's the deal. The climate control has a mind of its own and for some reason has decided to become like Hal from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey! First of all, you can not manually control the A/C or heater. No matter what you do, there is no response from the fan, A/C compressor, etc. The buttons illuminate but there is no response from the fan, actuator doors etc., nor does the A/C compressor turn on when A/C is selected. Once the car has been driven for approx 10 - 15 mins at highway speed, the fan then begins to blow somewhat cool air (the compressor does in fact kick in) out the vents on low speed. Then after approx. another 15 mins, it will start to blow harder but now it's warm air (not hot but warm) out the defrost vents. Those two things are the only constants you can count on happening every time you drive the car. The longer the drive the more things that happen but never in any certain sequence. It just goes nuts switching between the upper and lower vents, warm to cool (Never COLD) air and back and forth sometimes even quitting altogether only to start again within a few minutes.

Now, as I mentioned above it has issues with the air being warm or cool but never HOT or ICE COLD. Those issues are most likely related to the heater core and a low freon charge respectively and I'll deal with them once I get past the inability to control the system manually.
So, my question is this....
What should I look for as the main cause of this situation? Vacuum, blend door actuator? To me it sounds like the entire control module is haywire. I usually do all my own work on my vehicles and am fairly knowledgeable under the hood but I've never owned this make/model or its siblings so I'm not familiar with the system.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Regards,
Coach

Well, the easiest fix for this situation was to just replace the heater control unit. The interesting thing here was the H U G E variance in price for this thing. The best price I could find locally for a used one was $100. They ranged in price from about $25 to $50.00 on eBay. Just for giggles, I called the local Buick dealership to find out how much a new one would cost.....
$784.63 is what the parts guy said as we both laughed hysterically - literally! He then followed up his quote by asking me if I need him to check availability to which we both laughed some more! I ended up getting one on eBAy from a seller who had it listed for $27.00 but accepted offers and accepted mine of $20.00. He also offered a 30 guarantee and shipping was only $10.00. And while I'll never know how or why the unit was able to run amuck quite the way it did, I consider this one to be a cheap and quick fix at $30.00.

Coach

Climate Control Over Ride
 

I decided to move Photoshop Tips to this thread for obvious reasons.Dont ask me why I didnt do it sooner. Anyway, heres a very valuable tip that I use quite often EnjoyWe love Photoshops Fade command which acts like an undo on a slider, and when it comes to applying filters, we use it all the time to gain more control including blending mode control over filters we apply. The only downside to the Fade command which is found under the Edit menu is you can only use it one time-you get one opportunity to Fade, or choose a Blend Mode, then youre stuck. Heres a tip to keep the control of your filters for as long as youd like: When youre about to apply a filter, make a duplicate of the layer before you apply the filter by pressing Command-J PC: Control-J and then apply the filter. This keeps the application of your filter fully editable-you can change blend modes as often as you like, change opacity, add a layer mask to determine where the filter shows and where it doesnt, or even toss the layer in the Trash and start all over.