rockypointers

Thanks for the advice. I have spoken to a mechanic who has repaired several of our family vehicles. He too thinks it may be some sort of blockage with a filter. Will pay him to troubleshoot and get it fixed up. He also mentioned that since it's a computer, that 60 degrees is all that the vents should put out (which IS the lowest temp allowed on the "climate" screen).....


Again, I'm not expecting to freeze, but it does seem that 50 from the vents is not as cool as it should be. I may try the pipe insulation/zip tie mod that I read about to squeeze a couple more degrees out. But, again...my main concern is the velocity of the air (or lack thereof) coming out. Will post findings from mechanic on Thursday.

rockypointers

Rnlcomp....I read through some threads you had replied to regarding A/C issues and really do respect your expertise and ability to help the person with his issue. I think it was a Freon issue, if I'm not mistaken....


...anyway, do you have some extra thoughts on what may be the main cause for the lack of velocity?

RLXXI

Air intake blockage would be the first thing I would look for.

rockypointers

Echo that. Thank you. Will post findings.

inane2

Thanks, very interesting in your findings.

The company I work for has a fleet of around 300 vehicles. In the mid 2000's, they probably had around 20 Taurus', anywhere from 2000 to 2004 models. Had the OHV 3.0 and not the twin cam engine thank goodness. Anyways, these had cabin filters, an odd, rectangular shape filter that sit in a panel under the passenger side cowl vent. By the time these filters got stopped up and started impeding air flow, most of the plastic retaining pins on the cowl trim panels were UV damaged and very brittle. You almost dreaded trying to dig your way into the filter housing. These filters did stop a ton of crap from making it into the HVAC. Some would have leaves and other tree debris. The ones that didn't have bigger stuff would look clean until you got the new, bright white one out of the box. Then you realized the old one was gray with all kinds of stuff. Nice to have that filtered out. Ultimately, a TSB came out because of some cowl trim panel problems. Water was leaking down onto the blower motor resistor and would only allow the blower to run on high. This whole cowl area became quite the headache. We finally adopted a preventative maintenance interval on these and changed them before they got stopped up. This seemed to help with water leaks and less damage to the trim and retaining pins.

GM had cabin filters from 99-02 on there trucks and SUV's. You had to drop a trim panel off below the glove box. Then there was a little narrow door you had to remove. There were actually 2 square filters that went into the HVAC box, you put them in one at a time. Wasn't bad at all, much better than the Taurus. We started stocking these filters in our parts room because it was amazing how dirty they would get and then the airflow would go to nothing. On the 03' models, the door is still there but it isn't removable. No clue if there is a filter in there. My only thought was I would hate for there to be a non-serviceable filter in there because I knew how quickly they got dirty. I'd hate to have to split the HVAC box to change it out.

Sorry to ramble but I kind of liked the cabin air filter set-up. I know your 15 minute oil change places loved it. They were overselling them in a bad way once they found out about them.