I have a serious problem and need help fast. My car almost caught on fire from a wire burning up a year ago so now I am really worried about this recent development. I have a rear window defroster on this car. It uses a lot of power and has dimmed the lights before in the past while running. I was warming up the car with it in fast idle when I flip the defroster on. I had a feeling that it was not a good idea, but I did it anyway. I decided that I should turn it off when it did not seem to be working right. I then started hearing a strange clicking sound every so often under the dash behind the heater vents in the middle of the dash. It was a click and sometimes a double click. I drove the car all the way home from work and it did it the whole time. I was driving on the freeway when cold air like the vent was open started coming out of the front heater vents. I had the heater set to defrost and heat was coming in there fine, but the front vents were blowing cold outside air in. I came home and got out the manual and it appears that the vents on the car may be electrical. I don’t know if that sound is a vent or a recirculation solenoid value. I don’t know when I can get this fixed, but I need to know how to take out a fuse or something to disable this because I fear it could be a short or something and do not want a fire. I shut the car off and turned the key on and the car was not running, so it’s sure to be electical. Does anyone know what I should do to quickly resolve this for the safety of the car? I have to rely on this car right now, so I do not want it to burn up. I just need to disconnect what ever this may be. I don’t have the cash to get it fixed right now either. If you have any ideas that could help, please email me at pecmkr123@yahoo.com
Okay… I have a couple of questions here. Firstly, do you know which wire burnt up? Was it ever fixed?
The rear defroster is totally unrelated to the defroster that runs of your car’s heater, so those two problems are unrelated. Dimming the lights is normal, as the electric defroster does use a lot of power.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think the blend doors are vacuum powered on this car. The '86 Accord I sometimes drive makes all sorts of odd noises when you fiddle with the heater controls, which sound an awful lot like vacuum motors operating. It sounds like one of the blend motors, electrical or vacuum, has failed. Unless the previously charred wire was related to the heating/cooling system, there’s really no reason to suspect this is going to be a safety issue. A burnt-out motor is not going to catch on fire, nor will pretty much anything to do with a vacuum operated one.