car troubles - Leecho or any other mechanics?

so my wife's car (2001? honda odessey base model) has a weird electrical issue. the fan (for the hvac) only works in speeds 3 and 4, nothing happens, not even noise in speeds 1 or 2.

this seems to have happened suddenly, not slowing down over time.

i'm guessing not a fuse or the fan just wouldn't work.

and if there were a problem with the fan itself i would assume the 3 and 4 speeds would seem slower or strained or not work at all.

is this most likley a switch issue?

It could be a fuse. Try that as it's an easy thing to check. We just fixed my friend's 300z last night. The headlights wouldn't work when he had something else on. It was just the fuse.

yeah, seems weird though if it was the fuse that the problem wouldn't be the other way around... or just completely not work.

now i've got to find the fusebox on the thing...

I had a similar problem with my truck, only, if you ran it lower than 3 or 4, it would start blowing out black smoke.

Ended up being a bad blower motor.

Probably not your issue, but just putting that out there. (Real cheap repair though, like, $30-40, and you can do it in an afternoon.)

well, i'd rather it be a fan than the switch for sure. and it's a van so there's going to be plenty of room down there...

i just can't imagine that that's it. of course if there's some sort of friction problem, maybe 1 and 2 just don't have the juice to spin the impeller and 3 and 4 have enough. so, who knows...

We have the same year model Odyssey, but have not run into this problem, but it does sound like a switch issue.

I would suggest going to OdyClub forums to see what others' experience/solutions have been.

http://www.odyclub.com/forums/

That is/was a common problem with Malibu's.
It was a swtich issue on those cars. The switch would get too hot, fry itself and stop working correctly. It would only work on 4 and 5.

[homer voice]mmm, impedance[/homer voice]

that kind of makes sense, the lower settings are throttling the current more, maybe the wiring couldn't hack it.

It's a Honda, so you won't need to make any more repairs! LOL

you need to get the service manual as a pdf, with a wiring diagram.

worth the time to go through the system with the wiring diagram to determine its not a blown fuse and or bad switch. look for any other dependencies too. honda should have a trouble shooting method to follow.

my experience has been a bad blower motor and they were difficult to get access to, have fun.

Yeah a wiring diagram would help for sure! If i remember right, Honda probably has the 1/2 and 3/4 from one switch and 1/2 and 3/4 are treated as low-hi. They might be on 2 relays. A relay might have blown. Is there a buzzing noise? Try using the fan in key on engine off and you can probably hear any noises.

This was a problem several people had with their Pilots, which I assume have HVAC systems that are very similar (if not identical) to the Ody's, since they are platform-mates. As I recall, there was some sort of relay that failed. If you don't find anything out on odyclub.com, I would suggest digging around on honda-pilot.org.

This was a common problem in Cavaliers, caused by a bad relay for the blower motor. I know in the cavalier, the relay was attached to the blower motor, so it possible could be the same with your car.

Hmmm... guess its too late to say something here heheh. My fault. Been pretty busy past couple of weeks.
Have you gotten it checked out yet Eric?

sort of, my wife wanted to bring the car to "precision tune" instead of the really very good mechanic we have historically brought our cars to since she found a coupon for a cheapie oil change. they found the issue with the fan - they called it something else, but i believe they were referring to the relay.
they also told my wife they needed to "clean" the brakes. [uh, yeah...]

oh, and i did try to check http://www.odyclub.com/ but i can't reach the site. i'm just trying to get the name of the exact part to see how much it will cost and how easy or hard it would be to put in myself.
maybe i should just pick up the chilton's guide.

wow, the funny stuff i find when searching for things.

wanna know what it was? blower motor resistor. 10 dollar part

yeah, it was something like that, though it was fixed almost a year ago... ;P

Should've bought an American car.

Derek McNelly said:

Should've bought an American car.

Click to expand...

What's an American car?

agreed.

pretty sure that odyssey was built in ohio. the last civic i owned definitely was (and at the time had the most american content of any car... about 1998).