You won't see a flap, it's all internal.

IIRC there's a phillips screw holding tension on the outer sheath of the blue cable. Just adjust that so it has just a touch of tension when the adjustment knob is on cold.

I barely moved mine but it made a real big difference, enough not to need the AC when it was 75 degrees out.

 

Can't wait to tackle this one. If this solves the issue, big props to you. Thanks. There must be just enough residual tension on that cable to keep the system from reaching the full cold position, letting a little air past the heater core. This would reduce the A/C efficiency in the summer, too. 3 or 4 degrees of cooling difference is actually substantial.

 

No question this issue is also raising A/C temp coming out of the vents.

Can anyone post a picture of the cable and how exacty to access it.

 

All right, forget the picture, can somebody at least indicate if the cable is accessed from the upper or lower glove compartment?

 

x2...agreed, and would also like to know specifically how to access this area on the new body style cars.

 

Wow... That could be the problem, what a thing if it works...

 

I noticed exactly the same problem with my 2010 Fit. Even with the know turned fully to cold a little bit of warm air constantly leaks into the car through the vents, even when the blower is turned off.

Did anyone figure out the solution to to fixing this? I'd like to take care of it in my car too.

Thanks

 

i have this same problem in my 08. even when i have the ac on, it comes out not so cold. And for me it seems a bit colder if i position the fans to up and down, instead of just having it blowing in the face area.

 

I accessed the cable through the lower glove box and found I had very slight play even when the knob was turned all the way to cold. I manually shut it and found a slight improvement and there was a reduction in the flow of the warm air. However, even in this position the air from the vents is a couple of degrees warmer than the outside air. In my car I even get a slight smell of warm grease/oil.

Does anyone know where the blower intake gets its air from? I may be able to modify the intake location so that it gets cooler air rather than air that is probably flowing over some warm engine parts.

 

I'm keeping an eye on this thread as well. I recall fondly my father's '78 Accord which had vents on the extreme right and left sides of the dash that were so directly connected with the outside air that you'd occasionally get snowflakes blowing through. They were great for driving with the windows up and the AC off. I don't expect this on our Fits, of course, but greater airflow closer to outside ambient temperature would make the car much more comfortable for me.

 

I was experiencing the same problem in my 2011 Fit, so I opened up the glove box to have a look. The cable terminates in a loop that sits on a post that is part of the plastic linkage. On my car (which is only 4000 miles old...) the loop wasn't seated all the way onto the post. There's a tab that clicks into place when the loop is on there properly.

There's still a bit of slack in the cable on all the way cold, and there's still a bit of movement available in the linkage. There didn't seem to be any easy way to adjust the cable tension from that end, and without taking things apart further that's as far as I got.

If it doesn't show an improvement during today's drive, I'll see if I can find a way to change where the housing stop sits or space it out a bit to get it to close all the way. Maybe bend the cable a touch, it's cheap enough if I foul it up.

 

Let us know if you have any luck.

I'll talk to the dealer when I go in for my next oil change and see what they have to say.

 

snor - you have a brandy new car, why monkey around? Have the dealer correct the issue. There are procedures for adjusting the cables and damper doors. It's all under warranty...

 

Like all cars, the Fit's fresh air intake is below the windshield in the gap between it and the hood (air slots in plastic). It should not be sucking in any fumes from the engine (which itself shouldn't be blowing out any oil smelling fumes). Of course the '83 Ford F150 you're following probably stinks.

Here's a pic through the lower glove box opening I snapped when I was in there monkeying with something else. It happens to show the 3 control cables. Top is recirculate/fresh control. The middle (red) I think is outlet control. Bottom (I think) is temp. There's not an obvious method for adjustment, but maybe it's as simple as popping the cable off, and moving the metal sleeve that secures it. Might be crimped and no way to adjust from there. I didn't play with it when I took the pic to know if there is slack at the "cold" position or not. If it's less than 12 months old Honda may adjust it for free (like KC suggests). Or they might say it's working as designed.



fyi, the cabin air filter is easily accessed in the "drawer" at the lower right in this picture; just push in on the tabs on the side and it pulls out. Replacement filters are about $25 and freshen things up considerably... I think Honda gets $109 locally to change this (more evidence they're out to get us).

 

I can happily report, after driving all afternoon, that sliding the cable loop back to its proper place on the linkage totally solved my "warm air on cold" temperature issue. Hope this helps anyone else who has been having the same issue.

 

Thanks snordalisk and steve244. All very helpful. Do we want to increase the tension on that cable or decrease it? If the click-into-place strategy doesn’t work for me, perhaps I could try winding or unwinding that coil slightly?

 

If there's an adjustment factor designed in there, it would be by sliding the cable out of the retaining slot by moving it to the right, and then by moving the silver "collar" either forward or back (if it can be moved) and then re-inserting the cable in the retaining slot.

 

Would we want to move it forward or back? If the former, I wonder whether a washer could be inserted as a spacer. I'm working only from the photo here, so forgive me if there's an obvious problem with this suggestion.

 

op- this is normal. set your temp to full cold (with A/C turned off) and vent setting to fresh, fan speed one.

 

My father noticed this on some of his vehicles.

The fix was to install a device that allows one to
selectively stop routing engine coolant into the heater
core that is usually mounted inside the vehicle.

This keeps the heater core from heating up due to
coolant temperatures and in turn keeps the temps
down inside that airflow box.