heater fan noise

[rhandbber]

Hello ladies and gents. I got a question about my heater fan. When im driving along, it makes a small but annoying sound, like whisteling. When its cold, its worse. But when i turn, like in a roundabout, it stops. So im guessing a failing bearing or something. Is it hard to change myself? Can someone provide a step by step instruction? Tnx

[psycholist]

The fan is easy to get to provided you're okay with lying on your back with your head in the passenger footwell. Remove the foam trim under the glove compartment (held with a couple of thumbscrews) and you'll see the pollen filter cover (Rectangular) and the back of the fan motor (Round with wires going to it) in behind the glove compartment. The annoying thing is that removing the motor should be a 30 second tool free job as you just hold the release lever out and unscrews about 30 degrees and drops out, but the footwell ventilation pipe stops it from fitting all the way out, so you'll have to remove the glove compartment (About 5 torx bolts I think - there's one hidden behind the release button for the glove compartment door, so you'll have to pop the cover of this button to get at it) to get at the footwell vent tube bolt.

 

It still takes less than 15 minutes to get in there though. Unplugging the glove compartment light is probably the most annoying part of the job, but I think I got at that by taking the side panel the door closes against off the dashboard rather than trying to reach behind the glove compartment. The whole glove compartment assembly slides forward on pins before dropping out of position.

 

The fan unit is held together by a few screws, so easy to get into the motor once you've taken it out of the car. I'd clean off the black dust from the motor brushes and stick a bit of grease into the bronze bushing the motor turns on and hopefully that will silence it. The glue on the felt tape holding the wires feeding the motor together had oozed through the tape on my car made everything it touched sticky. While soap and water barely had any effect getting this off my hands, brake and clutch cleaner made it disappear immediately - get plenty of soap and water on straight afterwards though, I suspect brake and clutch cleaner isn't the kindest thing to expose skin to...

Edited 25 November, 2016 by psycholist

[rhandbber]

Thank you for the good and informative answer, appriciate it i will try to fix this  

[michaeldolan]

What should I be removing? Any help much appreciated. 

 

 

[michaeldolan]

It's a 2014 skoda superb I have 

[Smart Pro]

You have done the fiddly bit (removing the glove box)!

 

The video (turn the volume down if you don't speak Polish) shows how to remove the fan, which is very straightforward: 

 

[michaeldolan]

See what I have to do now, ggood video.