So my blower is making a ticking noise. It gets faster with the blower speed, so I'm pretty sure it is the actual blower and not one of the flap motors.

Glovebox out.

Screws out of blower. (even the top one was pretty easy with the right tool)

Seal broken between motor and air handler unit, so blower is "loose"

Can I get it out? Maybe I'm thick, but either the rotor is catching on the airbox if I angle it, or if I go straighter the back of the motor catches on the airbag.

I've seen folks claim to have this out without moving the airbag... How?!

Climatronic unit.

I've decided I don't believe anyone who claims to have had the blower out IN ONE PIECE without removing the airbag.

I can see two ways to have the airbag out:

1) remove the dash cover, and take the airbag out of the hole in the dash it would deploy through (risk of cover getting damaged / I hear it is quite tight)

2) undo the 4 bolts holding the airbag bracket to the car and take the airbag out complete with its bracket, via the gaping hole where the glovebox was.

Any reason not to do 2)?

Edited 1 December, 201213 yr by jimbof

Well I've got the replacement unit in and all sorted

Local VW dealer wanted over £300 plus VAT for the fan motor unit - un-believable. If they had it in stock they could almost justify it, but it was at least a day away. I must say I was disgusted by this; most items I've bought in the past have been reasonable-ish in price, but this one is just blatant profiteering.

Phoned up GSF - two parts in stock, but unclear what the difference is (they were both marked as "standard" quality - ie generic / pattern) - but one was more expensive. ~£45 vs £115. Both in stock. As they are local to me I popped in and they got the two out of their stockroom for me - the cheap one was a VeeTech "generic" part, but the pricier one was actually the "proper" Valeo part, so went for that. 10% off voucher off the website, so the damage was only £104.

Got it fitted pretty easily in the end - undid the airbag from the bottom (after disconnecting battery) - 4x10mm bolts which hold the airbag bracket to the car. A couple of the bolts are quite hard to get to so be armed with some sockets with a universal joint and an assortment of extensions. Still pretty tight to get it in and out, best to move the airbag towards the centre console a bit and then down and out (as then it clears the back of the blower motor).

After that blower comes out easily, and replacement fits perfectly. I could hear the clicking in the old one when rotated by hand, and lo and behold after re-assembling all the noises were gone. Couple of hours tops.

As a side note; my fan looked older than my miles, and this probably makes sense; if you are lucky enough to have an Edition 100 like me, the fan is running all the time the sun is out thanks to the solar panel - so by now my fan has run for 20,000 hours. If you multiply that up by an average amount of miles per hour you'll get to well upwards of 500,000 miles. Admittedly the fan is running slower for much of this time, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of my Edition 100 owning friends need a new one of these soon!!!

Edited 3 December, 201213 yr by jimbof

now that's a result

I've "hummed and hawwed" for a while as my recirculate/direction flaps have a problem, but so far the govebox has ended up in the boot along with lots of other bits - and now its too cold to bother!! I don't think that you can get the motor out without removing the airbag - well I believe that you can force it out and force it or a new one back in, but you will end up with a lot of clicking noises because quite a few of the fan elements will now be broken. I'm glad to hear that you can get the airbag out complete with the brackets as forcing that cover open does not sound an ease "clean" job, which is why I stopped work on my Passat.

I've "hummed and hawwed" for a while as my recirculate/direction flaps have a problem, but so far the govebox has ended up in the boot along with lots of other bits - and now its too cold to bother!! I don't think that you can get the motor out without removing the airbag - well I believe that you can force it out and force it or a new one back in, but you will end up with a lot of clicking noises because quite a few of the fan elements will now be broken. I'm glad to hear that you can get the airbag out complete with the brackets as forcing that cover open does not sound an ease "clean" job, which is why I stopped work on my Passat.

I don't know how much of the recirc flap you can fix via the blower opening even if you get it out; I thought most repairs involve getting the whole airbox (and hence the dash) out. Luckily mine works fine...!

The airbag was pretty easy though still quite tight to get out, and you need to watch as there are some sharp fastener tips protruding into the dash "cavern" which you could snag the airbag on if you're not careful. The module + bracket is pretty heavy so you want to be "comfortably" into the footwell to be able to see what you're doing and take the weight. Some good light helps.

Good luck if you go for it. Oh and it is quite easy when putting glovebox back to get it misaligned slightly and have a glovebox that only catches on one side; in my case this was sorted by pushing the glovebox upwards as much as possible while fixing it back in.