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Confused Comfort Controls

I must be in the minority but my climate control (2002 blue AV 2500) has worked flawlessly in extreme temp fluctuations.
 
Mine worked well most of the time. Occasionally, I'd press the outside-air button, and the rr defrost would come on. I figured it would be worth getting fixed before the weather got too hot.
 
timcosco said:
It happened again today. ?The heating and A/C controls took a crap and refused to cooperate.

In a nutshell, they "froze" me out... literally. ?The only control that minded was Mr. Fan. ?No matter what controls I pushed, all I got was cold morning air from the dashboard vents (and rear of console):

?A/C wouldn't kick in
?Outside/Recirc controls did nothing
?Mode knob had no effect
?Temperature knob had no effect

At the next red light. ?I shut off the engine, restarted and everything worked fine again. ?Weird eh?

Anyone else have experience this problem? ?I wasn't able to duplicate it again... should've driven straight to the dealer to let them have a look.
?
Click to expand...
Happened again this morning so I went ahead drove straight to the dealer. They found it odd and ordered a new climate control pod thingy (manual version).

Details to follow...
 
My controls do this also, so far one trip to the dealer and of course it didnt happen for them :6:
I'm now going to carry my camcorder with me so I can video tape the malfunction :0:
 
i guess i am not all crazy. today while driving the ac just turned off, the button was still lit, and i turned the dial to 66 degrees and nothing happened just lotsa hot air. the only operable one was the fan speed. i tried eveything, till finally i shut off the truck and restarted it. everything went back to normal. i have the automatic climate controls.
 
babydoc said:
I must be in the minority but my climate control (2002 blue AV 2500) has worked flawlessly in extreme temp fluctuations.
Click to expand...


Nah us with out problems tend to be quiet when things are good!
 
I leave mine in Auto/Auto and only fool with the temperature. I live in FL so the A/C is ALWAYS on.

Well, this week I'd start the truck up, everything would be fine but the A/C light would be off. I turned the temp down to "ice cold" and I'd get freezing cold air so I knew the A/C was on... but no light. I hit the A/C button and the light came on and I still had A/C. Hitting it again shut it off.

The light would stay on while I was driving. But as soon as I would park, turn it off, and turn it on later the light would be off again, but I would still have A/C. After a few days of this I turned everything off auto and then back to auto and it was fine again. Can turn it off and on and the light stays on.

It didn't seem to hurt anything but it was just odd enough to get my attention.

David
 
There might be a tad bit of confusion due to the fact I do not have the optional Electronic Climate Control System, but the manual comfort controls instead.

At any rate, the dealer installed a new controller pod this morning while I was getting the oil changed. We'll see if this fixes it. If not, I'll bring up the wire harness routing TSB that Av3 called out.
 
mmdavidw - I noticed similar things.... ?When going from auto to a certain vent on the right hand knob - it will either turn on or off the AC. ?If I manually override it, it seems to remember that next time I go to auto or not... ?It's weird.

One thing that's bugged me..... Where is the air coming from when neither of the left hand buttons are lit? ?Outside or Recirculate?

Do I need the AC button lit for heating??

The climate control works pretty good on auto-auto, for cooling....... but heating I'm a bit confused about. ? It was like 52*F out last night so I clicked the heat on. ?AC light was on. ?Okay, I guess I'll turn it off. ?Set temp to like 82 (not full hot). ?Just lukewarm air came out, w/ low fan speed (remember I set it to auto). ?Engine was up to temp. ??I drove to the g/f's house... shut off engine... got her, started engine, and the fan blasted nice hot air. ? :rolleyes: ? :p
 
One thing I notice on the Auto Temp is that I still have to manually select Air or not. Otherwise it seems the Air will stay on even if I turn up the temperature. Once I have it set for heat or air, it seems to work fine. As far as some of the other problems mentioned. I remember a pretty invasive TSB that included rerouting some wires that were getting chaffed causing the climate controls to malfunction. ???
 
Well folks here is an update on my climate control issues. I too was experiencing a situation where if I started my climate control from a dead stop or in stop and go traffic, it just wouldn't work.

A check of the system revealed it was low on R-134! That means it came that way from the factory. The evacuated the system, added two pounds and when I picked it up it was a balmy 87 degrees (down right hot for Seattle) and the A/C and Climate Control ran perfect. My Avalanche was oven hot inside and I started it up, turned on the climate control with all the windows rolled up and it blew cold.

So, if your climate control is blowing hot I would make an appointment with your service droid to get it checked out. Remember with the climate control that compressor is running almost full time so running around with low R-134 levels is a very bad thing...
 
I am new to this board as well as a new Avalanche owner (My first Chevy). I have a 2WD Z66 with the convenience package. So far I love the truck except one thing. My temperature knob has no affect on the temperature of the air blowing thru the system. If the A/C is on in either AUTO or manual mode the air is very cold. I can turn the temp knob from 66 to 82 and the temp will not change, (in AUTO mode it will blow harder or softer but temp is constant) if I turn the A/C off and just use outside air same thing. The only way I can get any heat out of the system is by turning the temp knob to past 82 to max heat then I get very hot air regardless if the A/C is on or not. I took it back to the dealership and they took a quick look at it and told me that was normal. He said the system always blows max cold up to the temp selected then cycles on and off to maintain the selected temp. He said the system never blends hot and cold air to maintain a constant temp. I was also told the only way to get hot air is to turn the system to max hot (past 82) then turn it off when I?m hot.

I?ve owned a lot of car and I?ve never seen a climate control system like this. Is this guy full of crap or am I stuck with a climate control system from the middle ages?
 
ihitcm said:
I am new to this board as well as a new Avalanche owner (My first Chevy). I have a 2WD Z66 with the convenience package. ?So far I love the truck except one thing. My temperature knob has no affect on the temperature of the air blowing thru the system. If the A/C is on in either AUTO or manual mode the air is very cold. I can turn the temp knob from 66 to 82 and the temp will not change, (in AUTO mode it will blow harder or softer but temp is constant) if I turn the A/C off and just use outside air same thing. The only way I can get any heat out of the system is by turning the temp knob to past 82 to max heat then I get very hot air regardless if the A/C is on or not. I took it back to the dealership and they took a quick look at it and told me that was normal. He said the system always blows max cold up to the temp selected then cycles on and off to maintain the selected temp. He said the system never blends hot and cold air to maintain a constant temp. I was also told the only way to get hot air is to turn the system to max hot (past 82) then turn it off when I?m hot.

I?ve owned a lot of car and I?ve never seen a climate control system like this. Is this guy full of crap or am I stuck with a climate control system from the middle ages?
Click to expand...

Your dealership is full of poop. There is a TSB out for your particular problem as you are describing. A small number of Avalanches left the factory in Mexico with their wiring setup wrong for the A/C. The problem is the wiring harness for the A/C control is routed wrong, pulled tight and may not be contacting into the controller.

The problem of an inoperative temperature dial describes this problem. Why your dealer told you this I have no idea. If you open up the owners manual to page to Chapter Three Versus Five it is all explained there. No where does it say to get heat turn it to full hot or to get cold turn it to full cold.

Your dealer sir is wearing hip waders to avoid the crap they are spooning out to you...
 
it seems as though my AV also was low on 134 but my dealer recharged with only 1.8 lbs of juice!! what is the proper volume (weight ) to use?? 1.8 or 2.0?? not wanting to be argumentative ....just looking for good solid technical advice as it seems that alot of dealers seem to have no clue!! .2 lb is a 10% undercharge and can/will make a difference on hot days here in south carolina!!
 
as a follow up question ....if indeed 1.8 is proper (still no verification)
would adding .2 lb more freon do harm to the system? what are the symptoms of an over-charged system?
if 2.0 is proper what harm will come to the system running .2 lb low??
thank-you in advance for any input

dms
 
I have the heat & ac gremlin in my av also. There is a tsb on it . tsb #01-01-39-007 Loss of system mode and/or temperature control (reroute wiring harness) I dont know if this applies to my AV but it definately has an intermittent problem. Always happens to me when its 95 degrees and humid, then blows hot air or none at all until I turn off then back on and play with all the controls. Mine is going in for service next week,I told the service advisor about the TSB and he assured me that the techs alweays look these up. I dont necessarily beleive that but am hopefull on the outcome. Mine has the climate control. I also have radio lockup gremlin and rear tailgate seal leak, another TSB well ,wish me luck.......and happy AVALANCHEing.
 
I had the same problem with my old Lincoln Mark 7. Had to turn the car off and back on to get it to work again.
 
I had my AV in for warranty work. Climate control had screwed up maybe 6 times in 3 1/2 months . The repair order said they replaced a cycling switch for the compressor. I had wanted them to check for the TSB on the wiring harness. The service writer assured me that the techs always check for tsb's . when I got my truck back the ac worked fine (of course it was working fine when I took it in). I drove the Av to work last week and the climate control got lost 4 out of five days. Well I'm sure glad they replaced that part and ignorted a possible wiring harness routing problem. I only have them work on my car while under warranty because I know if I fix it it will be fixed.
 
I've had my Av in 4 times for this problem. Turns out my brother bought a 2002 Tahoe and has the same problem.

Last time I had it in, changed out the low pressure relay.

Only been 4 days. We'll see!!
 
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