# blower motor inop 2006 A3 base



## tony a3 (Jul 31, 2010)

*blower motor inop 2006 A3 base FIXED*

Anybody else have this? Just curious what i'm going to be looking at for repair cost and labor.

2006 A3 base 6MT fwd.

At the advice of one of the posters, I've removed and lubed up the motor, reinstalled, fired RIGHT UP Many thanks to Travis for the inspiration to tackle this myself.:thumbup:


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## KayvinA3 (Aug 7, 2011)

must be more common than I thought. I bought my 06 used at 130k km's and had it for 2 days when the blower motor went and it was the middle of summer. I can't vouch as to repair costs because I got the dealer to replace it since i had basically just drove off the lot with it. I seem to recall him saying something like 300 for a new one? but i could be wrong. If i had of paid for it i would remember lol.


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## LWNY (Jul 30, 2008)

I thought replacement is easy since it is right under the glove compartment and cost of part is like $25.


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## Chadd (Jan 27, 2003)

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5417819-HVAC-Fan-Issues

Seems like a easy repair but according to genuineaudiparts the blower is around 300. It's hard to tell from the site because they don't have the parts diagrams anymore. If anyone has that diagram could you please post it. I have a related issue. I have an engine RPM only dependent noise in the dash with blower motor running at any speed.


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## tony a3 (Jul 31, 2010)

Hey, thanks for all of the info guys! :thumbup::thumbup:


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## Travis Grundke (May 26, 1999)

In my case, the blower motor failed at 51,000 miles, then again at around 71,000. It was replaced by the dealership at 51,000.

For the more recent failure, I decided to look at it myself. You just need to remove the glovebox, which involves about 6 - 8 screws. Start by prying open the side panel of the glove box, accessed by opening the passenger door. 

Once the box is removed, the entire blower motor cage is visible on the upper right. There's a retainer screw, then the unit twists and comes out. It's a very easy procedure.

In my case, the cabin filter was not seated fully and as a result, pollen, dog hair and all kinds of other goodies got up into the blower motor cage and seized the motor. I applied some lubricant to the pin and then tested it with a car battery and the damned thing fired back up, no issues at all.

I'm about 6,000 miles on from that change and she's still running strong.


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## Nuke-em (Oct 2, 2006)

I will let you know on Sunday as I've got dubwerks replacing my blower motor tomorrow. Replacement blower motor is available at ECS Tuning for ~$90

Matt


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## Travis Grundke (May 26, 1999)

Nuke-em said:


> I will let you know on Sunday as I've got dubwerks replacing my blower motor tomorrow. Replacement blower motor is available at ECS Tuning for ~$90
> 
> Matt



This is where I was confused: there are two different motors listed: one is ~$90, the other is several hundred dollars. I was never able to find a straight answer as to which was necessary and which wasn't. My guess is that the $90 part is the blower motor only, the ~$300 part included the equipment that's part of the climate control system for auto-temperature/fan speed regulation.

I'd love some clarification if someone has it.


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## Chadd (Jan 27, 2003)

According to the ECS website the cheaper motor is for cars up to 2008 with manual climate control. 

http://www.ecstuning.com/Audi-A3-FWD-2.0T/Climate_Control/View_All/


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## Travis Grundke (May 26, 1999)

Chadd said:


> According to the ECS website the cheaper motor is for cars up to 2008 with manual climate control.
> 
> http://www.ecstuning.com/Audi-A3-FWD-2.0T/Climate_Control/View_All/


Again, this is where it gets confusing: I'm surprised that ECS would market this in North America primarily because (correct me if I'm wrong) all A3's sold here have been with automatic climate control standard. There was no manual climate control.

Unless this is all merely confusion of terms on "climate control". There was a thread over in the GTI forums about how VW has changed the use of that term significantly over the past few years, leading to many of the same questions.


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## Nuke-em (Oct 2, 2006)

Found out the hard way that the ~$90 motor is indeed the wrong one.

Matt


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## tony a3 (Jul 31, 2010)

Nuke-em said:


> Found out the hard way that the ~$90 motor is indeed the wrong one.
> 
> Matt


Nuke, was getting to the fan itself a real PITA? I was thinking of doing this repair myself, but if there's special tools required, I may have my guys do the repair. 

So it looks like the difference is "*For Vehicles With Electronic Air Conditioning System Regulation*". That's a quote from ECS. I guess everybody here in the US has this setup? Its sort-of annoying that they don't offer a vin translation. I had my hopes up that it would be an el-cheapo repair!


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## Nuke-em (Oct 2, 2006)

tony a3 said:


> Nuke, was getting to the fan itself a real PITA? I was thinking of doing this repair myself, but if there's special tools required, I may have my guys do the repair.


So here's the scoop. I ordered the basic motor w/squirrel cage from ECS and dropped the car off at dubwerks for install. Got a call later that day that the motor was incorrect and that I needed the one with the electronics. I told Rich at dubwerks to just purchase the correct unit from his guy and install it as it would save me a couple days (what with transit and everything). Since I didn't actually purchase the motor, I'm not positive which one is correct, but I'm going to guess it's this one

In the end, the motor plus one hour of labor was MUCH cheaper than the dealer who quoted me ~$700.

Matt


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## LWNY (Jul 30, 2008)

good thing I didn't have to replace the fan. My became more and more hesitant last year, then I a little helper fan to suck air from the vent, where it started to run fine once again.

I did hear some people swapped out the burned out resistors that regulates each level's fan speed. Not sure if it applies to AC or climate control blowers.


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## tony a3 (Jul 31, 2010)

Nuke-em said:


> So here's the scoop. I ordered the basic motor w/squirrel cage from ECS and dropped the car off at dubwerks for install. Got a call later that day that the motor was incorrect and that I needed the one with the electronics. I told Rich at dubwerks to just purchase the correct unit from his guy and install it as it would save me a couple days (what with transit and everything). Since I didn't actually purchase the motor, I'm not positive which one is correct, but I'm going to guess it's this one
> 
> In the end, the motor plus one hour of labor was MUCH cheaper than the dealer who quoted me ~$700.
> 
> Matt


Hey, thanks for the info! Guess its going to be a spendy fall! Snows/maintenance/and the fan!:thumbup:


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## RyanA3 (May 11, 2005)

great thread on all accounts. 

but I have this sound here: 




Chadd said:


> http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5417819-HVAC-Fan-Issues
> 
> Seems like a easy repair but according to genuineaudiparts the blower is around 300. It's hard to tell from the site because they don't have the parts diagrams anymore. If anyone has that diagram could you please post it. I have a related issue. *I have an engine RPM only dependent noise in the dash with blower motor running at any speed*.


 
heater and a/c blows well. blows well folks :thumbup: 

but the sound is "like a dinosaur moaning" which is my wife's input. I drove it today and she's right! and so is Chadd, my philly neighbor: rpm only noise in dash, with motor running, but only when hvac is on. 

I wonder if going and lubricating the blower :facepalm: will help?


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## Chadd (Jan 27, 2003)

When you hear the noise hit the econ button and see if it goes away. 
In my case I have found something wrong in the A/C system. You can actually "feel" the noise in one of the pipes coming from the compressor. I have just been driving with the econ button lit. Will have to fix it before summer.


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## VWAddict (Jun 12, 1999)

Travis Grundke said:


> Again, this is where it gets confusing: I'm surprised that ECS would market this in North America primarily because (correct me if I'm wrong) all A3's sold here have been with automatic climate control standard. There was no manual climate control.
> .





tony a3 said:


> So it looks like the difference is "*For Vehicles With Electronic Air Conditioning System Regulation*". That's a quote from ECS. I guess everybody here in the US has this setup? Its sort-of annoying that they don't offer a vin translation. I had my hopes up that it would be an el-cheapo repair!


 Don't forget out neighbours to the north... 

In CANADA there were indeed some base-model (practically poverty-spec!) A3's sold fairly early on, and they WERE sold with three manual dials for motor speed, temperature, and air distribution. 

Presumably -since parts for these cars are bought cross-border, they've listed it as a parts item.


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## pay up (Nov 11, 2012)

Sorry for bumping an old ass thread guys, but I personally found this thread very useful, and so I decided to add a few useful tidbits of my own that I encountered.

So for about 4 months my car has had what I'd describe as intermittent blower motor issues. I tore everything apart, and curiously found that my blower motor worked upside down (I originally discovered this while trying to diagnose the problem). Weird I thought. However with a mild winter the issue went to the back of my brain. Fast forward to this week, single digit temps, I decided that something needed to be done.

With the usual suspects of the regulator, and blower control module J126 to be in working order, I knew the issue had to lie in the motor itself. (With some help from this thread: http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?7182696-Blower-motor-help) So then I decided if replacing the motor was what I was in for, I might as well give cleaning it another go. And at least temporarily its working again. One thing I would suggest to everyone who is going to attempt to clean their blower motor is there are three rubber tabs on the motor itself that push in to release the motor from the plastic housing. You have to remove the control module to get to one of them but separating the two pieces made cleaning it much easier and ensured that I could do a more thorough job.

And my back up plan when it fails again is to replace the unit with this one since I know my control module is in good working order:


http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=5551449&cc=2587 $85, the link doesn't show the price.

Hope this helps someone out there, whether you be sweating or freezing.


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