I have a 94 ford Taurus all of a sudden my ac doesn’t blow cold and my heat doesn’t blow hot. Any ideas here? Also every now and again I hear a sound like an alarm clock coming from passenger side?? Woman here trying to figure it out
The ticking is a blend door motor / actuator. It is now stuck closed so you get no air flow.
It’s an electric motor in a little box housing that has small plastic gears and something is stripped.
The actuator gets replaced …but…check the door movement to see that it is not binding, causing the gear strip.
It used to be these airflow control doors that route the heat and cold were operated by simple cable arrangements. Which rarely fail. My 40+ year old truck’s heater and ventilation controls, operated by cables, continue to work perfectly. Likewise with my 20+ year old Corolla’s. There’s plenty of heat, plenty of defrost, and easy enough to adjust to a comfy temperature.
Still, for some reason the car manufacturers decided customers wanted more sophisticated heating and AC systems. Systems that would deliver exactly the right amount of air at exactly the right temperature to exactly the right place. Hence, the need for electric-motor operated air routing doors.
It’s a compromise. You get more uniform and comfortable AC and heating, but less reliability. I think it the wrong compromise, but nobody asked me … lol …
Techs experienced with Ford products I expect replace these all the time. Shouldn’t be a problem to find someone who will get it fixed for you. How much it costs depends on which one isn’t working. The recirculating control is about a 1/2 hour job, the temperature blend control is over 6 hours. Plus parts.
Agreed with the blend door and since I assume this car has the EATC unit for climate control there may be something that could be done to prevent future issues once repaired. I heard of this a long time ago so it wasn’t my idea but I’ve used the method on my Lincolns for years and have never had a blend door issue.
It was discovered that if the temp control is set at the lower or upper limits (60 and 90 degrees) this causes the door to continue to be tugged on by the stepper motor which then can strip plastic gears and so on.
The key is to use 65 and 85 degree settings instead of the 60/90 and that causes the stepper motor to cease operation a tiny bit sooner.
The climate control works just as well in those revamped settings as it does at the limits anyway.