A/C Blower Issue

[ryanjl]

2012 LR4, around 96,000 miles.

Was driving yesterday with the A/C on full blast when the blower suddenly cut out. All the dash knobs and whatnot still work and light up normal, just no cold air blowing. It's never made any odd sounds like a bearing going out; this is the first issue it's had.

When it quit, it didn't sound like it seized up. It just stopped blowing as if I turned it off.

My first thought was a fuse. Looking through the owner's manual, though, and I don't see a fuse for the front blower. I see one for the rear blower (and there's a relay for the rear blower in the relay bank in the fusebox next to the battery), but nothing for the front. The closest I see is a fuse for the climate control ECU, but it's only a 10a fuse, so I doubt that's it.

This doesn't seem to be a common issue on the LR4. Searches turn up similar problems on the LR3. There, it's often the relay, which I guess is right near the blower motor. But I don't see a relay on my LR4, so not sure if they made a slight design change.

Other common problems are the blower motor itself. However, I pulled my blower motor and hooked it up directly to 12v power and it turned on fine (not sure how fast it regularly spins as I've never had it out before, but it kicked on pretty good).

Another possibility is the blower motor resistor. I pulled mine and it doesn't look abnormal (someone who had theirs go bad on their LR3 posted a photo and you could tell it burned up by looking at it). Nonetheless, I just ordered one off Amazon that can get here tomorrow so I can see if that's the culprit.

Has anyone else ever had this come up?

I found this thread (https://www.landroverworld.org/threads/105k-miles-new-issue.29628/#post-179097), but his was the blower motor. Like I said, I hooked mine up directly to 12v and it kicked on just fine. Is it possible that it can still be 'bad' even if it kicks on when hooked up directly?

Is there a fuse for the front blower? Is there a relay that I'm just not seeing?

thanks.

 

[johnsonlusac]

I have one

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[ryanjl]

I have one

Sent from my Infinix X653 using Tapatalk

'
You have one what?

 

[f1racer328]

'
You have one what?

Pretty sure this is a scammer trying to sell you a blower motor that he doesn't have... Our forums have been having issues recently.

 

[remember5]

Maybe this will help?

 

[ryanjl]

Maybe this will help?

View attachment 11322

The "blower control module" in that diagram must be the same thing as the resistor. That diagram also mentions a relay, though. Hmmm.

 

[ryanjl]

Well, according to this, the blower motor relay is in the engine compartment on an LR3:

https://landroverforums.com/forum/lr3-28/front-blower-fixed-65098/

The LR4's relay diagram is the same, but I thought the "fan" icon meant the engine fan, not the blower fan. I'll try that next.

 

[ryanjl]

I'm glad I found the thread that I linked above. Looks like my fusible link is blown. Not sure if that's the only problem or a symptom of something else. The fusible links Land Rover uses appear unique, so I'm not having any luck finding something similar at an Advanced O'Reilly Zone (online, at least). I'll have to pick one up from my dealer tomorrow.

Should that link blow again right away, my next guess is it's the resistor causing some issues.

 

[ryanjl]

Well, so far it's just the fusible link. Put a new one in this morning and it all worked great for the 20 minutes I drove it after.

A few notes:

1. The system on the LR4 seems to be the exact same as the LR3. Good information for the LR3 should translate directly to the LR4. This also means bad information can throw you, too. I read somewhere that someone posted the relay for the blower on the LR3 was down right by the blower. This is untrue. They may have been confused and were talking about the "blower motor resistor."

2. If this happens to you, the two things you should check first are (1) the blower motor relay, and (2) the blower motor fusible link. Neither of these are in the owner's manual, and the fusible link (which looks similar to a normal fuse) does not appear in the list of fuses in the owner's manual. They are both located in the engine bay fuse box right next to the battery. Even then, it's a little confusing. Inside the lid for the engine fuse box is a diagram with icons corresponding to the relays and fuses. The icon for the rear blower motor (if you have rear climate control) is easily identifiable. The icon for the front blower motor, however, looks like it's talking about relays or fuses for the engine fan. It wasn't until I found the link I posted above from another forum that I realized those were for the HVAC blower.

If your front blower is out, and you have an LR4 with rear climate control and it's still working, the relays for the front and rear blowers are identical. It's easy to just swap them and see if that makes the front blower motor work (and the rear not work). If so, that's your problem.

The fusible links look like square fuses, sort of like a box. The bottom of the "box" is opaque (the 40 amp ones are green), and the top is translucent (the 40 amp ones are sort of red-tinted). I guess the idea is you can see through the top to determine if the fusible link is broken, but for me the top was tinted too much so I still had to pry the top off mine to tell. The internals look sort of crude; mine looks more like it broke than burnt out. You can see it in the attached photos.

3. Once I realized my fusible link was bad, I couldn't find anything that looked like it on any auto parts store website. I couldn't believe that's something they don't carry, so I wound up just going into a NAPA, and they do have them.

All in all, a very easy fix (so far). Just one that Land Rover really screwed up by not listing in the owner's manual. Had I known of the fusible links, and had Land Rover's graphic designer not designed the blower motor icon to look like an engine fan, I could have had this problem licked within 30 minutes of the blower motor going out.

 

[ryanjl]

Well, the fusible link lasted exactly 7 days before it blew again last Sunday. I replaced it, and then one day later I started my LR4 to be met with the sound of a spark, a bunch of smoke coming out of the vents, the blower fan dropping down to nothing, and then the blower fan cranking up to full blast, all within the span of 2 or 3 seconds. I looked down and I had the blower set on the lowest "on" setting, so I just turned it all the way off.

The blower fan going full blast when you've got it set lower is a sign that the resistor has gone bad. The resistor was the next thing I had planned to replace if the fusible link blew again, so this just confirmed it.

Ordered a new one and received it this evening. Replaced it and everything works great again. Here's what the old resistor looks like. You can see the bottom right prong has gotten hot, and it smells like a burned out electrical part. All the resistors I've seen online that have shot craps look just like this, so I'm guessing this problem is common when they go.