Climate Control Ghost

The climate control in my 1995 lincoln continental will stop working on an intermittent basis but only in the summer. It usually seems to happen on very hot days after running a few errands. It only lasts 2-15 minutes and then operates normally for days or weeks. This has been happening for years. Nothing shows up on the mechanic’s computer as respects diagnostic codes.

Your mechanic can look for trouble codes until the cows come home, but I don’t think he’ll find any for the climate control system.

There is, however, a diagnostic procedure for the climate control system. It would be found in a service manual for your car, or on an online mechanic’s database.

When you say it “stops working,” what, exactly does that mean? Does the system shut off completely, or does it just not work the way it should? Please be as specific as you can.

Thank you McParadise. Here’s what happens: the fan completely stops working. Then, it doesn’t matter if I raise or lower the temperature setting, change to vent, manually try to adjust the fan speed dial, turn the engine off/on, or any other tricky maneuver I can think of. If it was something like a flat spot on the fan motor, why would it work all winter? I’m thinking maybe there’s an A/C fuse that may fail under hot temperatures due to increased resistance, or, perhaps, a ground somewhere. Maybe they grounded to a painted surface or it’s a little loose. When the A/C fails, everything else on the car continues to work fine. Please let me know if you need more details and thanks again!

Continental