Where to Get Trusted Service for Your BMW’s Bad HVAC Blower
Nobody likes climbing into a steaming hot car in the middle of summer. You crank your AC up as high as it will go and hope that it will cool off your car quickly. But if your HVAC blower has gone bad, you’re stuck inside that oven on wheels until it gets fixed. How does an HVAC glower go bad, and how can you find someone to repair it quickly? Keep reading to find out where you can find BMW auto repair in Houston.
How Does an HVAC Blower Break?
BMWs have extremely high-quality climate control systems, and that includes the HVAC blower. The blower, as the name implies, is responsible for blowing the cooled (or heated, in the winter) air from your HVAC unit and through the vents in your car. If the blower stops working, the air simply doesn’t blow. There are three primary causes of HVAC blower failure:
- Damage from other engine components – Sometimes, if another engine component fails, it can impact the other components around it. For example, if a belt breaks, the belt can whip out as it snaps, hitting other parts and damaging them. This can sometimes include the HVAC blower.
- Failed motor relay – The blower’s motor relay is by far the most common cause of HVAC blower failure. The relay is the electrical component that tells the blower when to force the air through the vents and how hard to blow, based on the settings you choose on your dash. If the relay goes bad, the signals simply don’t get to the blower. If your HVAC issues started with a slight delay when you were changing settings, then the issue is the blower’s motor relay.
- Simple age and use – HVAC blowers don’t last forever, and if yours has gone bad, it may have simply reached the end of its usable life. The issues often start with a drop in airflow, but sometimes, the blower can quit on you quite abruptly when it’s worn out.
How to Test Your HVAC System
If you’re experiencing issues with your HVAC system, you can perform some preliminary tests of the blower and AC system as a whole to help you gather important information for diagnosing the problem. Here’s what you need to do:
- Starting in the “off” position, adjust your blower a little at a time. Turn it up to the lowest level, then pause, feel, and listen. Pay attention to any unusual sounds, and place your hand in front of the vents to make a note of how much air is coming out. Then turn it up again, pausing and making a note of noise and air pressure at each level. The sound of the blower and the airflow from the vents should increase a little bit each time you turn it up.
- Switch between the different climate control settings on your dash, including air conditioning, heating, and defrost. You should be able to notice the change in temperature for each. (Make sure your engine is warm first, or the temperature won’t heat up.)
- Disengage any automatic climate control settings and manually adjust the fan level, checking airflow for all settings.
Performing these tests allows you to collect valuable information to provide to your mechanic when you bring it in for repairs.
Where to Find Reliable Repairs
As we’ve already mentioned, BMWs have sophisticated climate control systems and even more advanced onboard computers. It’s important you find a certified BMW repair shop in Houston, TX, that has the diagnostic tools and equipment to properly repair your car. If you’re having this problem with your BMW, bring it into Bemer Motor Cars today.