SKODA Rapid 2013 blowing hot then cold

[Chilled]

Hello All,

 

Our 2013 Rapid, which we have owned for 4 years and 35k miles,  has developed an intermittent although regular fault whereby the air that comes through the vents will fluctuate between hot and cold with a cycle every few seconds. Infrequently, it will remain blowing hot, and this can be so hot that even with the system turned off the hot air still finds its way through. These symptoms happen whether the aircon is on or off, whether the Auto function is on or off, and no setting makes the slightest difference whilst it is happening. There appear to be no environmental conditions that affect this either, ie internal or external temperatures have no impact, driving fast, slow, or being stationery have no impact etc.

 

Our local dealer performed a system reset to no avail, and is now offering further diagnostics at £80/hr ... 

 

Any help would be gratefully received!

 

Thanks in advance.

[JonBRapid]

I have a similar experience... Main dealer could not help me. Interested in your findings...

[Chilled]

Further to this, I carried out diagnostics using Carista which showed error codes: 00710, 01271, 01272 and 01274. Online search didn't help too much apart from telling me that they were for  the ventilation motors, so I thought I'd get the tools out. So far, after a few hundred miles, it has been fine. Summarised, this is what I did:

1) remove the climatronic unit and dismantle it, clean the  dust off the internal temperature sensor fan, duct and surrounding areas thoroughly,

2) remove the glove box, passenger footwell air duct and top centre vents, then take out the motor carrier for the 2 left hand vent motors.

3) dismantle and check the motors, re-soldered the joints on the PCB,

4) reassemble everything, reset the error codes using Carista and all works perfectly! I'm not sure which bit solved the problem, but I'd hazard a guess that the dust around the temperature sensor and its fan could have confused it. This part of the job is easily done in 15 mins, so well worth trying. To do the whole lot is a couple of hours.

 

Couple of things I found it helpful to do was to take the top centre vent out (10 second job) which meant I could see the defrost motor and centre vent flap to check operation. Secondly, if you put the passenger seat right back and stick your head into the footwell and look up (can get uncomfortable :)), you can see the motor that controls the heat mix, and also the re-circulation vents etc.

 

Quite rewarding and not a difficult job. Just to note that when you take the glove box out, you have to unplug the airbag on off swith and an airbag error will display on the dash until you plug it back in and restart the vehicle.

 

Hope this helps someone.

 

[theandywaite]

4 hours ago, Chilled said:

Further to this, I carried out diagnostics using Carista which showed error codes: 00710, 01271, 01272 and 01274. Online search didn't help too much apart from telling me that they were for  the ventilation motors, so I thought I'd get the tools out. So far, after a few hundred miles, it has been fine. Summarised, this is what I did:

1) remove the climatronic unit and dismantle it, clean the  dust off the internal temperature sensor fan, duct and surrounding areas thoroughly,

2) remove the glove box, passenger footwell air duct and top centre vents, then take out the motor carrier for the 2 left hand vent motors.

3) dismantle and check the motors, re-soldered the joints on the PCB,

4) reassemble everything, reset the error codes using Carista and all works perfectly! I'm not sure which bit solved the problem, but I'd hazard a guess that the dust around the temperature sensor and its fan could have confused it. This part of the job is easily done in 15 mins, so well worth trying. To do the whole lot is a couple of hours.

 

Couple of things I found it helpful to do was to take the top centre vent out (10 second job) which meant I could see the defrost motor and centre vent flap to check operation. Secondly, if you put the passenger seat right back and stick your head into the footwell and look up (can get uncomfortable :)), you can see the motor that controls the heat mix, and also the re-circulation vents etc.

 

Quite rewarding and not a difficult job. Just to note that when you take the glove box out, you have to unplug the airbag on off swith and an airbag error will display on the dash until you plug it back in and restart the vehicle.

 

Hope this helps someone.

 

 

Could be useful for the future.  Thanks for sharing.  Don't suppose you took any pictures?

[Chilled]

Afraid not, but it's really rather simple. erWin manual helped for parts location, which, everyone probably knows, you pay £6 for an hours usage and you can download every Skoda vehicle service, repair and maintenance manual available to the main dealers. 

 

If it's something someone wants to tackle, I'd be more than happy to share more detail.

[Beats75]

Hi, I’m having problems with my 2015 rapid spaceback 1.6 tdi sport heating system 

can’t get much warmer than lukewarm coming through the system despite a 25 mile run to work 

only got the car in feb and with weather being relatively good up until now I’ve never noticed this before 

Seen on some posts that there’s a way of re calibrating the climatronic system but the methods used don’t seem to do anything on mine 

when heating windscreen on full pelt drivers side gets warmer than the passenger side

can anyone over any help or advice ??

[Koreenium]

I had similar problem with my AC but I found out that it was intermittently blowing cold and warm air because the radiator fan had stopped working. After fixing the loose wire on the fan connector, it also fixed the problem with AC. But then months later the AC completely crapped out.

[Beats75]

Had it on diagnosis and says it’s a temperature flap motor fault 

currently trying to find the location of this 

any ideas anyone??

[inspectorman]

31 is the motor 6R2907511A positioning motor rhd; 38 is the actuator arm 8Z2819133

 

 

[Beats75]

Hey thanks inspectorman have u come across this issue before?

is it easy accessible and is it likely to be the actuator arm or the motor?

 

[inspectorman]

Q1. No. Q2 no idea but you will end up on your back with your head in the footwell. Q3 no idea but at least it might give you a start - and a picture of the actuator arm will let you see what it should look like. I'd get in there and get the motor off before ordering anything, though. Reported flap motor fault could be as simple as a dislodged connector... but you won't know until you have it in your hand. Good luck.

 

"if you put the passenger seat right back and stick your head into the footwell and look up (can get uncomfortable :)), you can see the motor that controls the heat mix, and also the re-circulation vents etc."

[Beats75]

Had a quick look earlier but couldn’t see it

was hoping it was gonna be a simple changeover but looks like there may be a bit more to it

[Beats75]

Spent some time stripping out to gain access to the motor

managed to get the motor out and manually work the flap using the actuator 

plugged the motor in and when turning heat control the motor seems to be working as it should 

diagnostics highlighted this fault but all seems to be working  so wondering where do I look to find the problem now???

[inspectorman]

Reassemble. Rescan. Is the fault still shown as a current fault? If the flaps haven't moved for a while, stiction may mean the motor can't move them - some motors / controllers are clever enough to then stop trying. "the motor seems to be working as it should" is progress. Now check to see if your heater matrix is actually getting hot.

[Beats75]

Just heading out shortly to reassemble and see if motor works when back in place 

not sure how to check the matrix tho? I’m a panel beater rather than a mechanic  and my knowledge only stretches so far😆how will I check the matrix??

[inspectorman]

"Does it get hot?" is all you want to know at this stage.

[Beats75]

I haven’t been able to access the matrix to check there is very little room to check the temp of pipes going in and out 

[sharpest]

On 10/03/2018 at 13:54, Chilled said:

Further to this, I carried out diagnostics using Carista which showed error codes: 00710, 01271, 01272 and 01274. Online search didn't help too much apart from telling me that they were for  the ventilation motors, so I thought I'd get the tools out. So far, after a few hundred miles, it has been fine. Summarised, this is what I did:

1) remove the climatronic unit and dismantle it, clean the  dust off the internal temperature sensor fan, duct and surrounding areas thoroughly,

2) remove the glove box, passenger footwell air duct and top centre vents, then take out the motor carrier for the 2 left hand vent motors.

3) dismantle and check the motors, re-soldered the joints on the PCB,

4) reassemble everything, reset the error codes using Carista and all works perfectly! I'm not sure which bit solved the problem, but I'd hazard a guess that the dust around the temperature sensor and its fan could have confused it. This part of the job is easily done in 15 mins, so well worth trying. To do the whole lot is a couple of hours.

 

Couple of things I found it helpful to do was to take the top centre vent out (10 second job) which meant I could see the defrost motor and centre vent flap to check operation. Secondly, if you put the passenger seat right back and stick your head into the footwell and look up (can get uncomfortable :)), you can see the motor that controls the heat mix, and also the re-circulation vents etc.

 

Quite rewarding and not a difficult job. Just to note that when you take the glove box out, you have to unplug the airbag on off swith and an airbag error will display on the dash until you plug it back in and restart the vehicle.

 

Hope this helps someone.

 

Hi, was this a Spaceback and was one of the motors you removed for the temperature flap as my 2015 Spaceback is hot all the time now and when actuated with VCDS nothing changes in the data.

I can can see the temp flap motor just up to the right of the passengers feet, did you remove this one ?

thanks.

Colin.

[rum4mo]

One of the things that happens to these motors is that the built in positional feedback system which is just a carbon coated track and a metal wiper, tends to get "dirty" and that leads to the controller getting confused when it asks for a position change and the feedback value does not change, so the system starts to "hunt".  On auto climate control systems, demanding a change from HI to LO and LO to HI many times can temporarily clean up the track and get the system back working, but to fix it for longer would need either to take the motor apart and clean it up or replace it with a new one.

 

HOT air in HOT weather finally drove me to sort out the temperature flap motor on my old Passat, I just bought a NOS part via ebay - buying the exact same part number as I had removed from my car.

[sharpest]

Hi, Thanks for your interest in this topic, I had already diagnosed the pot on this temperature flap control as being the culprit of my heating problem so what I was after was if anyone had actually renewed it without having to remove the dash panel.

To cut a long story short I have ordered the new part cost £49 for a German made compatible compared to genuine Skoda £152+vat.

Ihttp://127.0.0.1:45002/thumbnail/v1/download/8f376a398b3f2c668147928b4b80533324e43a85b9faf584951217ff3a216d12'll enclhttp://127.0.0.1:45002/thumbnail/v1/download/2e2b48c431f88fd077e52604fcfa387708791b2c4a67b22b8debf6850075c817ose scope captures of the faulty unit compared to a good identical unit which controls the defrost flap.

[sharpest]

[CS45]

On 15/06/2021 at 19:20, rum4mo said:

One of the things that happens to these motors is that the built in positional feedback system which is just a carbon coated track and a metal wiper, tends to get "dirty" and that leads to the controller getting confused when it asks for a position change and the feedback value does not change, so the system starts to "hunt".  On auto climate control systems, demanding a change from HI to LO and LO to HI many times can temporarily clean up the track and get the system back working, but to fix it for longer would need either to take the motor apart and clean it up or replace it with a new one.

 

HOT air in HOT weather finally drove me to sort out the temperature flap motor on my old Passat, I just bought a NOS part via ebay - buying the exact same part number as I had removed from my car.

Interesting. I wonder if this is what is happening to my 2013 with Climatronic. It was making a really annoying clicking noise as you can hear in my videos below, and occasionally the system would seem to get stuck blowing hot air, even if i hadn’t asked for it, to the point that the air was so hot it was uncomfortable to have my hand near the vent. I took it to the dealership for this issue, (because it has a bumper to bumper warranty), and they replaced a sensor. It hasn’t done that again, but the noise remained, and on Thursday i took it in again. This time, they charged me a £90 diagnosis fee and said the noise was caused by debris in the cabin filter. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t solve the issue, so I had a look at the car myself and I found this servo motor near the cabin filter going haywire, and it was continuously actuating these cogs which seems to cause the click. I’m going to contact them again tomorrow to see if they can fix that part and also to see if i can get that diagnostic fee back. 
 

PS: the behaviour you see in the videos happens after the car has been running for a while, but it continues to do it regardless of the climatronic settings, whether it is turned on or off.  Indeed, one of the videos is taken when the car is off with the key out. 
https://youtube.com/shorts/v5VHRgLh6rI?feature=share

 

 

[sharpest]

It looks to me like the ecu can't decide where the actuator is so keeps moving it on again.  I would monitor pin 2 yellow wire with either a scope or a graphing meter, I would think you will see a very erratic output from the wiper of the potentiometer. If you look at those captures of mine, from my previous post the first one is the faulty potentiometer of the hot-cold flap actuator. The other capture is the  V71 air flow positioning flap actuator which is working correctly. I checked both these after removing the bracket that holds them in place and then powering them up on the bench.   Both motors worked perfectly it was only the potentiometer of the hot-cold one which was was the problem.

[CS45]

On 27/06/2021 at 23:03, sharpest said:

It looks to me like the ecu can't decide where the actuator is so keeps moving it on again.  I would monitor pin 2 yellow wire with either a scope or a graphing meter, I would think you will see a very erratic output from the wiper of the potentiometer. If you look at those captures of mine, from my previous post the first one is the faulty potentiometer of the hot-cold flap actuator. The other capture is the  V71 air flow positioning flap actuator which is working correctly. I checked both these after removing the bracket that holds them in place and then powering them up on the bench.   Both motors worked perfectly it was only the potentiometer of the hot-cold one which was was the problem.

Interesting. I’m having that servo motor replaced on Friday, so we will see if that solves it. If not, I will look down the potentiometer route. 

[sharpest]

It looks to me like the ecu can't decide where the actuator is so keeps moving it on again.  I would monitor pin 2 yellow wire with either a scope or a graphing meter, I would think you will see a very erratic output from the wiper of the potentiometer. If you look at those captures of mine, from my previous post the first one is the faulty potentiometer of the hot-cold flap actuator. The other capture is the  V71 air flow positioning flap actuator which is working correctly. I checked both these after removing the bracket that holds them in place and then powering them up on the bench.   Both motors worked perfectly it was only the potentiometer of the hot-cold one which was was the problem.

 

Hi CS45, if you are replacing the motor then you should solve it as the potentiometer is built into the motor.

I got mine off Ebay £49.