My mom’s 2003 Alero’s A/C wasn’t working properly so she took the car to a shop and they gave her an 800 dollar estimate to fix it. She declined the offer. The mechanic then said he could (free of charge) set it so it would work but that she would have no heat. Worked great but now that it’s cold outside I’d like to set it back so the heat will work and then when Spring rolls around switch it back to A/C. Any thoughts on how to accomplish this?
The problem with your mothers car appears to have been with the heat control valve and not the AC. The heat control valve is a ball valve located in one of the heater hoses. It will be found under the hood near the firewall. Look for two 1" dia hoses going into the firewall and one of them will have this valve.
The valve has a cable attached to it that connects to the heat control on the dash. Chances are the cable got out of adjustment at the control panel which involves a lot of labor to fix. For free, he probably disconnected teh cable at the valve, and then set the valve to the closed position.
I owned a couple of Jeep Cherokees that had a similar problem with the heat control valves. I just added a bypass valve for summertime use since I lived in Arizona at the time. The AC would freeze you on the hottest day in the desert after bypassing the coolant flow away from the heater core.
“The heat control valve is a ball valve located in one of the heater hoses. It will be found under the hood near the firewall. Look for two 1” dia hoses going into the firewall and one of them will have this valve.’’
I found the 1" heater hoses that run into the fire wall but don’t see the ball valve your talking about. Is there a chance the valve could be somewhere else or that this car doesn’t use a ball valve?
Sounds like yours only uses a blend door. Look under the dash for a lever that you can flip the other way. The blend door directs air thru the AC core or heatr core.
Yes, 87_Ranger could be right.