I know I have to replace the blower and resistor due to the typical on max only air flow. But my question is who went with OEM vs Aftermarket? Aftermarket appears substantially lower in price. I need to order both parts this week.

Thanks

cannonball

 

Aftermarket. Think of it this way: the oem part broke, and Honda has never updated the part, so you'd be putting the exact same failure-prone part in there again. Not saying aftermarket is better, but, in this case it can't really be worse.

 

You can usually tell if an OEM part is subject to failing. If the part is available in the aftermarket then it has a history of failing. Aftermarket manufacturers do not make parts for something that is reliable and have no failure record.

 

Aftermarket! I did mine 4 months ago. I bought the lowest price (with free shipping) resistor on eBay, about $11. I made a low ball offer on a motor, and they took it, $28 shipped. Not the best deal! Turned out to be used and jammed in a flat rate box and arrived with fan cage and housing broken. Seller made a total refund and told me to keep / toss the broken parts.
So there I was--- 1 bad & 1 broken motor and time to kill. I started ripping into my original motor that was turning quite stiff. I first cut off the plastic end cap over bottom bearing and tried oiling bushings but it did not free up. Proceeding deeper-- I pulled motor from plastic housing, with hammer, punch, and Vise-Grips bent back the metal tabs holding plastic end housing / brush holder on motor housing. Release the little spring clips holding brushes to commutator, and pulled brush housing / bushing off motor shaft. And found the ROOT CAUSE of problem. It appears to me the sintered brass bushing has NO OIL impregnated in to it. There was a buildup of burnt / dried residue on motor shaft that was causing shaft to get tight in bushing. Residue is easily removed with a little fine emery paper and when reinstalled in the freshly oiled bushings the armature spins perfectly free! Simply oiling bushings did not free it up because of the buildup of crud on shaft. I reassembled the end housing to motor and re-bent tabs to retain it, pushed motor back into housing, reinstalled everything and it's working great! $0 cost.
I maybe monkeyed around for 2-3 hours figuring out how to get motor apart, fix, and reassemble, it's not meant to be serviceable. I could do it again in 20 minutes. If the bushings were properly oiled to begin with the problem would never happen!
I also pried the perforated cover off the resistor. There is a springy little arch shaped piece (fuse element???) soldered between 2 of the resistor connections. The solder melts and the thing pops off one end, the resistors don't actually fail! Push the arch shaped thing back in place and re-solder it! Good as new, and again $0 cost. I already had the new one so I used it but I now have a spare.