V70: Electrical Heater motor not working v70

[helmsdale]

Any assistance very much appreciated. I have a 2008 Volvo V70 D5 (RHD) UK Spec. The problem is the heater blower does not work (on any speed). Everything lights up like it should do, but it just doesn’t blow any air. I’ve tried the following.
Checked fuse under bonnet
Replaced power unit. This is how it is labelled on VIDA, although I would call this a resistor pack.
Vida is reporting no faults from the ‘CEM’
I am anticipating the fault will be the heater motor, but to be fair I can’t even see it when I look from the front passenger foot well. I found a good post on Mathews Volvo Site, and this shows a step by step guide to changing the heater motor, but this is obviously a left-hand drive vehicle, and the procedure is most likely totally different.
I know there is a tool to remove the motor, and I can get one of these for £60, but the heater motors I’ve seen on eBay are attached to the plastic shroud, and wondering whether I actually need one of these tools.
The car is quite new to us, and what I will say is the pollen filter appeared a bit clogged up when I changed it, which is why I thought maybe the resistor pack (power unit) may have blown. But this definitely isn’t the case. You may think the resistor pack I tried on the car may have been faulty too, but I swapped this from an identical car where the heater motor is working fine, so know the resistor pack had no faults.
I’ve got VIDA, but I’m not in any way an expert on this. I want to try and put 12v to the motor if I can actually find where the terminals are. Has anybody done this job, or can anybody advise me on what to try next. This is one of those jobs I’ve been putting off all summer, but now the colder weather is coming, I really need to get this fixed.
Thank you in advance

[apersson850]

These parts are usually difficult to get at. I've not replaced any fan motor like this, but when I've seen it done, they have removed the whole dashboard.

I have replaced the power module on a 745 once, but then it was the opposite problem. The fan never stopped. Not even when turning the engine off. But in that case there was a plug from the motor, which went into the power module. That's where you need to apply power to test the motor. The power module is usually sitting in such a way that it gets cooling by the air passing by when the fan is running, so it's typically very close to the motor.

And yes, VIDA is right. There's no resistor pack when you have ECC. That was in the old days, of manual fan control in a few fixed steps.

[pierremcalpine]

The heater fan does come in a plastic casing and you DO need to special tool to take it out.

It's not quite a "dash out" job. Instead you access it from below so it's more of a Speedo cluster-CEM-glovebox-carpet-plastic trim-cabin filter off type of job. Took me about 2hrs. Not that complicated, just a bit tedious as you have to literally bend over backwards in the footwell to reach upwards to loosen screws and remove fan. It gets upplugged from above when you take out the speedo cluster.

[helmsdale]

Thanks for replying. My car is a right hand drive, looking at your profile location, it looks as though you're in Canada. Was your car a RHD, if not, would it make it a harder job or easier.

I've been on Vida today and the fan speed demand seems ok, and it says the motor is getting power. What is weird, when I go onto activations for the CCM, I go to power and select 'start', it does nothing. When I turn the fan speed knob to zero it says 'off'. When I select 'start' on Vida, it does nothing, but then when I select 'stop' the fan speed indicator goes from off, to about 25%. Even tho it indicates a fan speed of 25 %, the fan doesn't blow.

[pierremcalpine]

Originally Posted by helmsdale

Thanks for replying. My car is a right hand drive, looking at your profile location, it looks as though you're in Canada. Was your car a RHD, if not, would it make it a harder job or easier.

I've been on Vida today and the fan speed demand seems ok, and it says the motor is getting power. What is weird, when I go onto activations for the CCM, I go to power and select 'start', it does nothing. When I turn the fan speed knob to zero it says 'off'. When I select 'start' on Vida, it does nothing, but then when I select 'stop' the fan speed indicator goes from off, to about 25%. Even tho it indicates a fan speed of 25 %, the fan doesn't blow.

Very strange. I have had some troubles with VIDA as well for that sort of testing. I'm not sure I would totally trust it for that kind of testing. Did you have key in pos II? It may have something to do with the fact that fan doesn't actually turn on unless the car is running...maybe try the test again with car running.

As for extend of job when it's LHD or RHD I can't really comment. I'm guessing it would be the same job mirrored. Have you looked at the instructions in VIDA to validate scope of job?

[bobsy852]

A youtuber recently uploaded a video of him doing this:
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-9SKu49LBE[/YOUTUBE]

It requires a special tool. Apart from this it doesn't look too difficult, just very time consuming

[helmsdale]

I've looked on Vida, and stipulated the RHD model, but the workstream shows a diagram of a LHD model. I've been checking the various modules etc, and came across the following

Air Humidity Sensor Nod not mounted / not initialised

Any ideas what this is, could this cause the fan not to run

Thanks in advance

[pierremcalpine]

I don't think that would prevent the fan from starting. I've had an "air quality sensor disconnected" message since I replaced my fan 3 years back. I can't be bothered to research further but it has not caused any issues.

If you really want to test the fan, just take the instrument cluster out by popping off the steering plastic cowling bellow the dash cluster and then loosen the 4x? torx bolts that hold the cluster in place. Carefully unplug the cluster and set aside. Shine flashlight in and towards the center of vehicle. You will be able to just make out the 12V connection for the fan. Take it out and try powering the fan with direct voltage. If she starts, it's not the fan.

Note: to be safe I suppose you should disconnect the battery before starting the job. I've done it a couple of times without doing so and have not caused any issues. Also note that you'll need to re-initialize your power windows if you disconnect battery. No biggy. Keep us posted.

For what it's worth I looked into how much it would cost to send the tool to the UK for another member...I think it came out to $25CAD so say 15euro. I can send it your way if you can commit to sending it back.

[helmsdale]

That's really kind of you, I will try and get a definite prognosis and then if it is the fan I would really appreciate that. I've took the clocks out, but it doesn't give me a view of the plug, but I think this is because my V70 is a right hand drive. I've removed the glovebox on the passenger side (this would be your drivers side), and there's no problem with getting to the power unit (resistor pack), but there's no access to the fan motor. There's a yellow and red wire going to the power unit ( resistor pack), and looking at the wiring diagram, the feed to the fan motor is yellow and red, so was wondering if this feeds directly to the fan motor, from the power unit. I would think there would be a way and getting power to the motor, but don't want to blow anything up....which can be easily done on these modern cars :-)

[pierremcalpine]

Here's a good video for the LHD model. You may be able to x-reference to see how similar the two jobs are.

http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthr...eo-instruction)