Hi
My selector switch for heat direction in my 03 Sunfire seems to be shot. When I turn it extreme left or extreme tight, it just springs back. All I can get is heat through the front vents, none to floor or more importantly to windshield, and I'm fogging up really badly every other day.

Before I tear into the dash (never my favporite job becasuse it seems I never achieve much back there) does anyone have any tips please? Have to fix before winter or I'm screwed.

Thanks
Phil

Phil,
My cavalier has the same problem. I've been told there are two possible solutions/problems for this.

1) Your cable is kinked. You can climb underneath the panel, and try to straighten it out with a pair of pliers. See if this works.Worse case, you can hopefully reach up and try to manually pull the lever and force it over to defroster, so the car is at least drivable.

2) There's a "hole" in your vaccum of your air system (thats how I've heard it described), and it will take a lot to fix it.

I'm going to try #1 this afternoon, I'll let you know how it goes. My biggest goal is to figure out how to remove the knee panel under the steering wheel.

take it to the dealer, theres a TSB to replace the cables.

I don't knwo if it has to be under factory warranty for them to do it or not but its worth calling to find out.

Do you have a link to the TSB?

i believe it has to be under warranty for the dealer to replace them. mine is having the same problem, but i went ahead and bought the parts to do it myself. it was only something like 30 bucks. theres a cable and a piece of foam as well.

Did you have to remove the whole dash, or just the underside by the steering wheel?

And do you have the part # still?

So you don't think it is the selector switch, just a cable issue?
I'm not sure why you want to remove the dashboard above your knees to get at this. My selector switch is on the right side of the control panel, about as far as you can get from my knees.
Thanks
Phil

My cav is doing this too! Haven't figured out what the problem is yet but like yours, my switch just springs back when I try to take all the way to the left or right. Can't get my windows defrosted or warm my feet up now that it's winter.

Here's the scoop, at least on my vehicle. I got underneath the dash, and did some removing of panels.

My cable is kinked, but it appears the rotator it attaches to underneath the dash still turns. So I fortunate I think that I don't need to tear into the dash to replace. At worse, it appears I will need to remove the left knee board (panel with the trunk switch on it) to put a new cable in. The part number for the cable is 89018243.

If your foam is jacked up, then you might need to open up the dash to get at it. I didn't make it that far. The part # fort the foam is 89018656.

I haven't gone to the Chevy dealer yet to see how big a hassle a new cable will be to get.

If you need to absolutely get heat to the defroster so the car is drivable, do the following steps:

Reach under the dash and disconnect the cable from the back of the vent switch. I had to use a pair of pliers. Be careful not to bust the back of the knob! Climb around to the left side of the dash, and remove panels under it (the center pieces, and the small piece with one screw and two push-pins.

Looking up, to the right from the gas pedal behind the "radio volume control", you will see a large black dial with the other end of the cable attached. I just manually turned the dial until the defroster/foot selection was picked. Best I can do until I can get Chevy to get me a new cable. I don't think it will be too hard to wire in a new cable without removing the top dash, hopefully.

And a special thanks to Jake Legend for his help.

Update:

I went to the locate Chevrolet dealership and picked up the cable. They had it in stock fortunately (which makes me wonder how common this is). Looking under the dash, it doesn't look like this will be too complex of a repair. With the knee panel out of the way, and MAYBE having to remove the console, I should be able to get this sucker put in over the weekend. I'll try to take pictures and make a how-to since a lot of folks seem to have this issue.

Hi
Just to confirm, you are taking out the LEFT (Driver's knee panel) even though the knob is on the right side of the console (on my Sunfire anyway; don't know about the Chevy)?
And you can get to the knob without removing any panels to disconnect the cable (following Andrew's workaround)
A how-to would be good if you have time please
Phil

Yes. The cable runs up and to the left. It's a cable, so it has to run somewhere. Yes, you can remove the cable from the knob, but for the ease of getting to things, its probably best to remove the panel. I will try to do a how to, but it probably won't be until next Monday until I can get to work on it.

Mine went as well. The ONLY problem I've had with the car. I turn the knobs SLOW now so as not to screw them up again.

had the same problem...went under my dash and straighted out the cable cuz it was kinked....after that it has worked fine...(its been about 9 months).....

Update:

I replaced the cable. Talk about a pain in the ass if you don't remove most of the dash.

I didn't remove the dash. The only things I removed were the two panels at the end of the console, and the small piece of place above the gas pedal. I also unhooked the plastic heater tube. I couldn't figure out a way to remove the knee panel without taking off the top of the dash? I removed a couple screws, but it didn't seem to loose up at all. Anyways...

I unhooked the kinked end from the knob, and unattached the end of the black shield where it clips. Then I went up above the gas pedal, and unscrewed the other end of the black shield and removed the cable. After about an hour of cussing, I got the new cable back in and installed. It's a little stiff, but it works!

Sorry, no pics, wife has the camera today. I will try to post some pics of the new install this weekend.

If the cable is bent all you do is get under the dash and straighten it. If it happens again just reach under the dash and streighten the cable while you turn the knob. The slow thing works to. Just had to do this to my 03 cav yesterday.

You guys are my HEROES!! ive been running around for a year with no damn defroster cuz of this problem! I finally got off my lazy ass and became a member on here last month and I've fixed/ modded my car more in that time then since ive had the car!!1 Thanks again guys for the answers


144db@38hz! It hurts so good !

Don't be surprised if it happens again. The reason the cable bends is because the mode door in the hvac box has a sheet of foam on it. That sheet of foam has shifted and is causing the door to bind with the box. You need to tear into it and trim the foam back.

Well I spent about 20 minutes tonight and, Surprise!!! My vents work again. The steel tensile cable hadn't so much as kinked, more like it bowed betwen the connector and the plastic sleeve. As a consequence, I'm goin to go along with mrgto and just take it SLOWWWWW! Thanks guys again,not the first time the org has saved mmy a**!


144db@38hz! It hurts so good !