I fixed the car again, i loves the internets

[Wolfstrike]

my dad pulls up in his van and says the front air vents aren't working. he's ready to go to the mechanic.

he starts applying his old school procedure, looking in the manual, trying to take covers off...
I got on the internet and find a youtube video of the same symptoms.

turns out, the vent goes out of there's a vacuum leak.
what does the vents have to do with a vacuum leak? absolutely nothing. they designed it that way so you would go to the mechanic if there was a leak.
the mechanic tells you he replaced a fan motor for $500, when the reality is, they changed a $8 hose.
I didn't find any bad damage so I blew out the hose and re-connected it, BAM! vents come back on.

 

[R.C. Christian]

I could have told him that in 5 seconds. Most cars use vacuum motors to run the vents. So either your vacuum ball is bad you have a bad leak. This is 7th grade shop class stuff.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Vacuum-operated HVAC was common at least as far back as the early 70's.

 

[Mr. H.]

my dad pulls up in his van and says the front air vents aren't working. he's ready to go to the mechanic.

he starts applying his old school procedure, looking in the manual, trying to take covers off...
I got on the internet and find a youtube video of the same symptoms.

turns out, the vent goes out of there's a vacuum leak.
what does the vents have to do with a vacuum leak? absolutely nothing. they designed it that way so you would go to the mechanic if there was a leak.
the mechanic tells you he replaced a fan motor for $500, when the reality is, they changed a $8 hose.
I didn't find any bad damage so I blew out the hose and re-connected it, BAM! vents come back on.

You owe Al Gore a debt of gratitude.

 

[Wolfstrike]

Vacuum-operated HVAC was common at least as far back as the early 70's.

safety to make sure vent fan is on

 

[Moonglow]

The blower motor is not the most common element to stop the squirrel cage fan from operating, it's an over priced resistor/rheostat.

 

[R.C. Christian]

The most annoying thing IMO is either a clogged heater core or a busted one. 9 hour job for most people and you usually end up with a few screws that you didn't have before. I'm talking Ford here mostly. It's easy to back flush a core but you never notice until it's so freaking cold you don't want to deal with it.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Still trying to get mine to work. Removed the compressor which disconnected some power leads,; I am sure that has someting to do with it.

 

[blastoff]

Well I too want to thank Mr. Gore for his foresight in inventing the net.

I've used youtube a lot to find out how to fix/repair things around the house. It's amazing the amount of cures one can find for damn near anything that might come up.

 

[Jarlaxle]

The blower motor is not the most common element to stop the squirrel cage fan from operating, it's an over priced resistor/rheostat.

It will usually still work with a bad resistor, but only on high. At least on my Cherokee, the resistor was about $10.

 

[Freewill]

The blower motor is not the most common element to stop the squirrel cage fan from operating, it's an over priced resistor/rheostat.

Here I thought it was the squirrel dying.

 

[whitehall]

my dad pulls up in his van and says the front air vents aren't working. he's ready to go to the mechanic.

he starts applying his old school procedure, looking in the manual, trying to take covers off...
I got on the internet and find a youtube video of the same symptoms.

turns out, the vent goes out of there's a vacuum leak.
what does the vents have to do with a vacuum leak? absolutely nothing. they designed it that way so you would go to the mechanic if there was a leak.
the mechanic tells you he replaced a fan motor for $500, when the reality is, they changed a $8 hose.
I didn't find any bad damage so I blew out the hose and re-connected it, BAM! vents come back on.

Yeah, the internet is the greatest source of information available to humans since the beginning of time. That having been said it's obvious there is still no shortage of cliches relating to mechanics.