No air flow from vents though blower is working after a couple hours

Dilbert

New Member
Hi friends,
I bought a pre-owned 2008 Honda Civic in 2013.
The problem I am facing is that during long-drives, the air-flow from vents drops to almost zero.
This happens while the A/C is still on and blower is also working - I can tell from the sound of the blower.
For the first 2 hours, cooling is good and air-flow is healthy too but I don't know what happens suddenly at around the 2 hour mark that causes air-flow from vents to go to zero.
Does anyone have any idea why this problem happens and what is the solution for it?
Regards.
 

Kenneth

New Member
5+ Year Member
Hi Dilbert, welcome to the forum. I have a couple of questions for you. Does the car only have this problem on a long drive? Have you checked to see if it's icing up? I've seen an 07 civic that had an issue with what appears to be the fan itself. It stops blowing, or drops the fan speed to low. But this can happen after driving only a few moments. Lowering the glove box door to reveal the blower housing. Then delivering a sound thump to the housing with a solid object while this problem is happening yields an immediate temporary fix. If that's your case, then the problem could be a blower motor going out. It seems unlikely that this problem is caused by the same thing as in the other thread. As he mentioned icing up, as well as the compressor refusing to cycle, and remaining on at all times.
 


Dilbert

New Member
Hi Kenneth, thanks for the reply.

1) The car has this problem only on long drives. For the first 2-3 hours or so, the AC works fine. Blower is blowing good volumes of air and then suddenly the air pressure from the vents drops to almost zero.
On my daily drives to office or other drives within 100 kms, never faced this issue.

2) I never checked for icing up.

3) I saw the other thread and posted there as well but seems like the guy has not found any solution in 2 years of facing the problem.

Regards.
 

Kenneth

New Member
5+ Year Member
I was hoping your problem was limited to the blower, and not the a/c system. Unfortunately I've heard of this problem before. To my knowledge, no one has posted about a solution to this issue. Most people, having solved their own problem, will just move on. Never sharing the solution with the forums that they themselves looked to for an answer.

Sadly, I have seen some follow up to your issue. The prognosis wasn't good. On at least one other forum, a particular member had a thread going for several years. But to my knowledge, no solution was found. He stated that he'd been to several dealerships, in the hope of finding a tech who could figure it out. Maybe someone has the answer, and maybe they'll share it here. But from what the guy said in the other thread you posted in, the answer sounds elusive. Almost like it's the ecu.

Most of the threads on this problem, that I've seen, are at least a couple years old. Seems likely that someone would have solved it. Have you tried the dealer?
 


Dilbert

New Member
I have not tried the dealer yet because I go on long drives only like twice a year and I had almost forgotten about the issue till last week when I did have to head out for a longer drive and faced the issue again.

I do plan to go to the dealer but since the next long drive is a while away, I was hoping to get some solution from the forum first because given other people's experience, I don't think dealer would be able to solve it.

Meanwhile, I have written to Honda's Customer Care yesterday regarding the issue. I will post if I hear anything useful from them. If a solution exists and Honda knows how to fix it, I will go after them to give me that.
 

Kenneth

New Member
5+ Year Member
A solution most certainly does exist. It's just the finding it, that's the problem. Others have had this problem, and likely solved it. But it's beyond my scope. It's going to need someone who knows electrical diagnosis. As a guess, I'd say heater control unit. But that's just a guess, because it's been known to cause this issue. My research has found that Honda has two different brands of suppliers for this part. And one of those it seems is prone to failure. Unfortunately I cannot provide the link to the information, but it's covered fairly well on another forum that deals with 8th generation civic. Google it.
The hcu isn't the solution for everyone, possibly they've replaced a bad unit, with the same brand. Only to have that unit then fail. I'm not a fan of replacing parts unless I know they're bad. But maybe you can find a way to test the hcu.
 


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