So we have some people from Europe over and I drive to lunch with my 4 week old Screw, wow, everybody is totally impressed by the size of the truck, its smoothness, the quality and might of the American icon… and then on the way back the heater goes out. At 25 degrees outside temp it is always a nice option to have a heater… So turning all the *****, we realize that no matter what we do, the system refuses to blow air out of the dash and rear vents, the only heated air circulation was on the floor. Even defrost didn’t blow convincingly. (This is the part were the all mighty tough build American icon took a nose dive in the ditch and was all of a sudden on the same level then some 15 year old rusty Citroen…)

The whole experience and resulting discussion was quite unnecessary.

Then on the way home I dreaded the thought of calling the service department in the morning to have someone pry open my dashboard, as this is usually where the problems really start (pry-marks, resulting under-dash rattles, the likes). Then suddenly, some 300 yards from home, a loud “crack” coming from somewhere underneath the dash, and who would have thought, a swell of hot air exiting out of all the correct vents, whatever was stuck, unstuck itself magically. So what now?

 

I used to hit the blower housing two times hard on my 1996 GMC pickup. the blower always worked then ( loose connector)

sounds like the actuator lever or butterfly valve was stuck
but as you say... now what........

 

What nothing.

You're heater works now. It was stuck.....

 

Probably what happened was the vents were frozen shut, then they thawed and broke themselves open. Condensation was along the outside edges of the main vent, then when the vents were closed, they froze shut. That's what happened to your heater, nothing can really prevent that except for not shutting the vents after they have been on and you know that you are going to park in the cold.

 

OK Pickup Man, as it did the same thing again this morning, I will try your suggestion, makes sense actually. Thanks.

 

Excuse me? Are we saying frozen heater doors are something that someone should consider as a normal event in today's vehicles? I know that most of us live without individual climate control systems on later model Ford products, we had to live a long time until we could even get the dual-mode cool air from the vents/heat on the toes affect. But, somehow I don't think there is much of an excuse for having no heat - period, period, period. These trucks are supposed to be state of the art.