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Climate Control fail

6K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  Nethacott 
#1 ·
Hello all - I joined this forum some weeks ago when I had an issue with my air con. In my opening post, I mentioned that although I love the car, it had thrown up a couple of problems, mostly minor. The biggy was the air con.
One day some weeks ago, I noticed the outside temp read out was blank, I hadn't noticed at this time that the air vents hadn't opened, however, later on, I did.Now, the touch scree was still working, the demand for temp was working, the demand for fan speed was working aand the demand for the seat bum warmer was working, but the bum heater wasn't.

I initially trawled this and other sites for ideas as to what could be wrong. Nothing definitive turned up, though there were a few peripheral issues that may in the end have been related. In the end, I took it to a garage that I have done business with previously. They connected their OBD tester on it and found a shed load of faults listed. Virtually all were historic and no longer active. They did pick up that the Climate control unit had lost comms. That's as far as they wanted to go as they didn't have an inhouse sparky, but they knew a man that was and they got in touch with him. We arranged an appointment and he came to my house to take a look. His OBD confirmed the first and he quickly identified a connector on the internal fuse panel which showed signs of corrosion. He whipped the panel out and low & behold, the pins on the connector had flashed across
50716


Start to finish, about 15mins - So he knew a place locally that repairs electronic cards and off it went

Now here's a warning - come evening time, I noticed the rear lights were on. They were switched off at the controls so this was a puzzle. I contacted my guy and he said he thought the car had gone into default mode. Quite what the means I have no idea. I started to become concerned about the battery charge as this potentially was a whole new can of worms. Put the battery on charge you'd think, but guess what? The boot won't open, it's electric. Turns out there's a key inside the fob to open it mechanically........and this didn't work either, (something to investigate). Anyway, overnight I had an idea. Connect the battery charger to the fuse pane feed and a ground, (ran this past my guy first just to be sure). Hey presto, battery now charging.

Card came back two days later. Installed in 25mins and we're good to go. All seemed fine untill a couple of days ago when the warm weather arrived. Set air con to cool and nothing. Vents open, fan running....... no cooling.

So now I'm waiting for another guy to come, an Air Con specialist. I told him this story and he told me that the problem is very likely to have been caused in the first place by the washer bottle leaking. Water tranks along the cables and enters the fuse panel area, hence the corrosion, (forgot to say - "Low washer level" light has been on for some time, another little job for me).I have heard that washer bottles have been the cause of problems in the past with these cars, so check yours out.

So, if you're still awake, I'll update as & when this matter is finally resolved.
Dave
 
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#3 ·
Hi Nethacott,
unfortunately washer bottle leaks can cause all sorts of electrical problems with the XF as the water runs down the wiring to the fuse box as the specialist informed. They are also prone to dashboard light errors due to low battery current.
Interestingly, I have had the boot issue you described. The spare key access point in the boot lid was very stiff and both the plip and the emergency key would not work. Played around with WD40 and wriggling key, finally got boot to open. Worked for a few days and fault returned. Any way when lockdown eased I was finally able to visit family and stay over at my brothers. While there I decided to upgrade stereo and while messing in the boot with sound deadener I took the opportunity to spray the lock again. Haven't had an issue last couple of weeks so maybe connecting mechanism in boot was seizing. One thing to note there was a design issue with the loom which can cause boot not to open or shut and arm the alarm. I was intending to check my wiring as I repaired the loom a couple of years earlier when my brother had the car. It could be that the soldered joints are failing again..
Worth checking the loom and the linkages to the emergency boot lock. (y)
 
#4 ·
Hi Nethacott,
unfortunately washer bottle leaks can cause all sorts of electrical problems with the XF as the water runs down the wiring to the fuse box as the specialist informed. They are also prone to dashboard light errors due to low battery current.
Interestingly, I have had the boot issue you described. The spare key access point in the boot lid was very stiff and both the plip and the emergency key would not work. Played around with WD40 and wriggling key, finally got boot to open. Worked for a few days and fault returned. Any way when lockdown eased I was finally able to visit family and stay over at my brothers. While there I decided to upgrade stereo and while messing in the boot with sound deadener I took the opportunity to spray the lock again. Haven't had an issue last couple of weeks so maybe connecting mechanism in boot was seizing. One thing to note there was a design issue with the loom which can cause boot not to open or shut and arm the alarm. I was intending to check my wiring as I repaired the loom a couple of years earlier when my brother had the car. It could be that the soldered joints are failing again..
Worth checking the loom and the linkages to the emergency boot lock. (y)
Thanks for that. As a minor irritent rather than a problem at this time, the boot issue is further down on my to do list. Trying to get sorted in other areas for our holiday in 6 weeks. The washer bottle problem looks to be somewhat worrying though. May have to run it empty till it's sorted.
 
#6 ·
OK - All sorted now. I had an Air Con guy round today, (as recommended by auto elec guy that found the fuse panel fault). And sure enough, no gas. I was sure the air con was working pre catastrophe, but hey ho, maybe not. With temp not being set below 20, I probably didn't notice during cooler weather.
So, all gassed up now and after some spluttering, system is now working again.
I'll mention this again - it seems it's quite common for water to leak from the washer bottle pump and track along the wiring. I'm hoping to take a look later this week. The low level switch hasn't been working for some time, perhaps it's not entirely coincidental.
 
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