Question

BMW 318i (1998) Air Conditioning Conundrum

Asked by: technicalnotebook

Heya everyone,
I am a very new car owner (only just got my provisional license here in Australia, I have been told it is one of the toughest places in the world to actually go from your learners to full licence, takes us 4 years so I would believe that... anyhoo offtopic).

I have purchased myself a second hand BMW 318i from my parentals (awesome deal) but there seems to be an issue with the air conditioning. On a REALLY hot day i.e. in excess of about 37 degrees Celsius the fans for the air conditioning will not come on. The servos all seem to function (when I switch from recycled air to outside air) and when I press the air conditioning button (as opposed to just running the fans) the engine cranks up like it has taken on the load of the air con... however still no fans.

After speaking to a mate he believes that the car may have a failsafe so if it is too hot it will not run the fans or air conditioning to ensure the engine will not overheat. Has anyone ever heard of this? I was just curious to get the opinions of people more experienced with cars.
Many thanks
Stuart

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Asked On
2009-11-03 at 18:29:46ID24869608
Tags

car

,

bmw

,

air conditioning

,

fan failure

Topics

Electronic Systems

,

Automotive

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
2

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Answers

 

by: lherrouPosted on 2009-11-03 at 18:47:32ID: 25735975

technicalnotebook,

Congrats on the license :)

From what I see around the web, this sounds like a climate control computer problem.

You have some options: replace it with new parts, try to find the parts from a used/wrecked 318i, or try to repair it yourself (see http://www.macadamizer.com/bmwfix.html for one person's repair story).

Cheers,
LHerrou

 

by: technicalnotebookPosted on 2009-11-03 at 21:28:10ID: 25736657

Thanks dude that is exactly what I needed, I will take a look.

And thanks for the congrats it is nice to have some extra freeeedom.

I will take another good look through the link you gave and see what I can come up with.
Cheers
Stuart

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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