Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Saving $180- on a Car Fix

I've been surviving the past week without any Air Conditioning in the car. Not only no air-conditioning but no air at all. Using my trusty Gregorys Repair Manual I narrowed it down to the Fan Motor Resistor (or because my car has climate control the Fan Motor Amplifier). I'm sure most of you (like me) didn't even know your car had a Fan Motor Resistor.
So I called the local Holden Spare Parts and they wanted $195- for a replacement. I said, "You're dreamin'" - I didn't actually but that's what I thought.
So, I jumped on the web and did a search for "VR Berlina Fan Motor Resistor" and found that this is actually a common problem and people far smarter than me had already figured out a work around that would cost only $12- (and some time).
It involved taking the Fan Motor Resistor apart and replacing the transistor (see picture) inside. This involved removing the old one off a circuit board and soldering in the new one. I've never really done much soldering but I thought I'd give it a go to save $180-
I called my Dad and asked if I could use his workshop and he ended up helping me out as we tackled the changeover last night (thanks Dad). Apart from breaking a bit off the circuit board and having a couple of small pieces leftover we cranked over the motor and the A/C works - amazing.

Another issue has been that the heater/A/C fan has been noisy for a while and I have to apologise to passengers when the fan is on high speed. I had time to remove the glove box and check out what was making the noise. It was a serviette that had slipped out the back of the glovebox and was rubbing on the fan. It took all of 5 minutes to fix and yet I've been putting up with the noise for about 2 months.

A satisfying end to a few hours work. Not just saving the $180- but feeling good about actually making it work.

4 comments:

Ludicrousity said...

No air con is just bad at this time of year! But yay for Mr Fixit!

Ross said...

Speaking of cars, you may have noticed that I recently replaced mine. I now drive a 1999 Ford Laser hatch. It was time to say goodbye to the Pintara after it broke down again. This time the engine blew a hole. The cost of repairing it would have exceeded the value of the car itself, so I decided it wasnt't worth the trouble this time.

Anonymous said...

lesson in life: fix what needs fixing on time - 5 minutes work is worth more than 2 months of "audio torture"!!

dobbo said...

Hey Ross,
I did notice a Laser in the car park and wondered who it belonged to. Hopefully this will give you less problems than the Pintara.