Joshjani

My son's xA has heat and cool air that works, but no air comes from the center vents. Only the vents near the doors work. I'm actually not sure if the windshield/defrost vent works either. I felt around the base of the windshield but couldn't really tell. FWIW his windshield does fog up rather regularly. Does the xA have more than one blower? Or just a vent selector/switch that needs to be investigated?

I'd love any advice- this winter and spring he's just made do with a foggy windshield, or heated the car up well before driving. I'd like to get the air working before summer. Thanks for any help!

JC

Wellerg

Same problem, recently purchased 2008 xB, outside vents only blowing air; not center vents. Suggestions?
GW

Joshjani

Well, I wound up buying a new center control assembly, with the cables attached. I found on my son’s car that one of the cables had stretched out, so when the vent control **** was turned, it didn’t actually move the baffle to change the airflow. The **** just turned, wearing out the plastic. Once I replaced the center control unit, running the new cable to where it belonged on the driver side right leg, I noticed that the assembly holding all the air baffles was extremely gritty and dirty, and didn’t move freely.. I blew out what I could with an air can, then squirted silicone lubricant on anything I could see moving. If you want to try that, be warned that it’s difficult to lay under there at an angle where you can spray without getting it on your own face! Wear safety googles! It’s also quite uncomfortable. I also made a mistake of removing a center screw to see if I could clean behind one of the gears, but then I couldnt tell the orientation to put it back. I finally figured it out, but it was tough.
If you want, just LOOSEN a screw or two, lubricate as needed, then put it all back snug. Don’t remove anything!
Anyway- the heat controls work “ok” now- still a little stiff, and we have to carefully turn the **** to direct the airflow, but my experience was that there is one blower, but the air baffle box was sticky, which stretched the cable, which stripped the ****.