Blower resistor fails again (focus 2002)

Guffy

My blower resister failed about a year ago, only worked on number 4. Got a replacement from the scrapyard and it lasted a month or so, same thing, replaced after a few months with one from the scrapyard and again it lasted a few weeks. Again i left it a couple of months, it was annoying but kept putting it off.

So on monday gone, i picked one up in the ford dealer, was dearer but i had to get a part for another car there anyway. Installed it on tuesday, and friday morning its gone again.

At first i had put it down to old parts from the scrapyeard waring out but obviously there is an underlying problem if a brand new part fails like this.

Any ideas?

biko

Google suggests it's a known issue.
www.google.com/search?q=focus+heater+resistor+keeps+blowing

martinr5232

You need a blower motor aswell thats what is causing them to blow so quick.

nmacc

Hopefully you don't need the motor.

Firstly. check that the pollen filter is clean. That won't fix it mind you, it's just good practice. The issue is caused by the motor bearings slowing down the fan and reducing the airflow, so that the thermal fuse on top of the resistor pack fails.

The fix is to take out the fan motor and oil the bearings with WD40 or similar. If you're lucky that will give you another year or two, maybe more. If you're unlucky then the motor is s dud and you'll need a new one. Did you keep the original failed resistor pack? You can fix them by soldering in a new thermal fuse, which is the small silver cylinder on the top - the original is spot welded, but traditional multicore solder will work fine. You can get the fuses from Radionics or Maplin. You can cheat and go for a higher temperature or current, but I really wouldn't advise it; the smell in the car is really horrible when it all starts to smoulder.

Waterson

the feed for the switch can also give trouble, remove the HVAC switch panel from the centre cosole and inspect to see if there is any melting at the connector.