I searched old threads before posting this, but couldn't find anything that clearly matched my situation. Hoping you can help.

Last week the blower on my 2002 Accord started working intermittently. Through a process of trial and error I have found that it will work until the igntion is turned off and intermittently won't work on restart. I have also found that it will randomly resume working and, when it does, will continue to work uniterruped until the ignition is turned off again. It seems that banging on the lower passenger dash or hitting a bump encourgages it to resume operations.

All of the blower threads that I found seemed to recommend the transistor repair, but in all of those cases that owners cited specific fan speeds that weren't working and not a complete absence of any fan action.

Based on the symptoms I've described, can you recommend what repairs I should undertake?

Thanks.

Jim

 

Check the electrical connector to the blower motor to make sure it isn't loose.

When the blower inside the car stops working, hit the bottom of the blower motor under the glove box with your hand a few times. If the fan comes on, then I would suspect the blower motor is bad.

 

Your accord doesn't have a transistor. It has a resistor. They essentially do the same thing, but a bad resistor would allow your fan to run on the highest fan setting. The resistor doesn't sound like your problem.

 

Thanks, PAHonda. As you can see, electrical systems are not my forte.

It happened again tonight and a good whack to the lower passenger side dash brough the fan back to life. Sounds like it's probably a fan motor, eh? Is the replacement of this motor difficult?

Thanks again.

Jim

 

Yep, the brushes in the motor are probably gone.

The replacement is really simple. You need to unplug the fan motor, then remove 3 or 4 bolts. I highly suggest getting a Honda one, because I had some problems with the aftermarket one from the parts store. Look at a site like hondapartsnow.com or majestic honda, or an OEM one from EBAY.

If you go with an aftermarket blower, make sure that it does not have two wires sticking out that you have to splice into the wire harness. You want to be able to plug the car's electrical connector into the fan motor. It looks like some of the aftermarket ones for the 98-02 have that. The one I found for my 95 didn't have that.