I have a 2015 Fit that only blows hot air. I believe that it is an issue with the temp control knob not adjusting the airflow between the hot air and cold air. I'm pretty sure the AC compressor is working fine and would produce cold air if the vents adjusted properly. Can someone provide or point me to info on how to access the pieces that are of interest here, such as back of the temp control knob and vent that switches between hot and cold air?

Thanks!

 

If you take the glove compartment out you can see what is going on. Not sure if you can reach where the cables attach without taking out more of the dash, but maybe. I can't remember.

 

Yep, you were right. The white lever that turns to adjust the temperature is pretty much jammed, stuck on hot. What is this assembly called. Does anyone have any info on servicing/accessing this?

The attached image shows the jammed white lever, which is connected to the blue cable.

 

I took off the white lever and found that it turns a knob via teeth. One of the teeth appears to be broken off on the knob. Any idea what is involved in replacing that knob? At least I was able to turn it by hand to switch to cold air for now.

 

Dude you still have a warranty? Why not just let Honda deal with it?

 

There are a lot of reasons someone might prefer to do this repair themselves. 1 it is a very simple repair. May only require replacement of the little knob with the gear having broken teeth. It may be less expensive to buy this part than to pay for the gas, wear and tear on the car (tire wear for example) driving to and from the Honda dealer. Honda dealers have a high likelihood of f-ing up repairs - perhaps breaking something else while putting in the gear. For example when prying out the dashboard parts they may break some of the delicate clips that hold the parts in place, and then simply install the damaged part - with the result being that the part rattles when you drive. Then get them to find the rattle and fix it: good luck. With so many models of cars, it is hard to know on any car where the dash parts are held with screws, and where they use simple friction tabs or clips. It is easy to think it is a clip when it is really a tab with a screw hole and a screw. Then when they pry, they break the tab with the screw hole in it. The result is that when they put the part back in the tab will rattle against the part it screws into, instead of being held snugly in place by the screw. Again you will have a rattle or a squeak when you drive, and they will be reluctant to disassemble the entire dashboard looking for it, since they know they may get paid little or nothing by Honda for doing this. They could bend the cable when installing it, weakening it. The result of this would be unnoticeable at first, but the life of the cable may be shortened - it might last until the warrantee period is over and break shortly after that. There are all kinds of novel f-ups they could cause - f-ups that I would have a hard time imagining and that I would be amazed by when I actually see them.

My understanding that Honda dealers often feel that Honda does not reimburse them adequately for warrantee labor. If someone very much wishes to avoid doing a mechanical repairs themself and wants a Honda dealer to do it, I would suggest discreetly offering to make it worth their while to do the repair properly. Perhaps hint that if you are happy with their work, you will tip them. Prove you mean this and are generous by giving the service advisor a free gift before the work even starts. If they think you will be generous with your appreciation, should they do a good job, and if they are therefore generous with their attention to detail, and really do a good job, show them evidence of your generosity. Slip the tech a $20 dollar bill right away. Later, write a letter to Honda saying "so and so did a good job." Send the tech a copy.

Also, I suspect the technicians are encouraged to work fast, and compared with each other to see how fast they can complete a job. Plus they have many many different models each with different dashboards and different places where there are clips verses screws. I know when I did warrantee repairs on numerous models of laptop computers in the field, I had to log on once a week to compare my speed with the other field technicians. I could have spent hours searching service manuals for where the screws were verses the clips, or simply pry the parts apart - if it was a clip they would come apart, if it was a screw they wouldn't come apart. Most of the time I would discover it must be a screw, but sometimes I would keep pulling and break the part before I discovered it was a screw. I was encouraged to just put the part back in place and not worry about screwing it in. On the other hand, when I was self-employed, which means I worked directly for the computer owner, I took my time and made sure I didn't break anything, often spending hours searching through service literature. I did not charge my customers for the hours I spent looking things up.

 

Nomenclator's right. Honda tore my heat shroud down while doing the "lost motion spring" recall on my '10 Fit. They also broke and threw away a bunch of cowl clips under the windshield, then put the cowl back loose enough to rattle like crazy.


As for the heat shroud they tore, it's supposed to hang flush against the firewall and prevented engine heat from entering the passenger compartment. If in others' case it's a broken gear that needs replacing, fine, but check the heat shroud between the engine & firewall too. And don't pay Honda to unless you want to deal with more problems down the road.

 

Why should htimsda check the engine compartment heat shroud? He's already discovered that a lever that controls which way air is directed is jammed, which explains why he only gets hot air and not cold air. And he's found out why its jammed - a nylon gear has a broken tooth. All he has to do is replace the gear and confirm that he can now get cold air into the ducts instead of hot. Does a loose heat shroud cause heat to be convected through the HVAC ducts, or does it cause heat to be conducted through the metal between the engine compartment and passenger cabin. I could be wrong, because I am unfamiliar with the heat shroud, but off hand I would think the latter. In which case the problem of there being only hot air rather than cold, coming int the cabin through the ducts, would not be caused by the heat shroud.