My 2015 Corolla S plus has the climate control dash computer to set cooling/heating/auto modes and the blower settings. My blower has 70k miles and has lived a hard life getting used every day in sunny Florida. Recently it started acting up. The motor rpms would slightly drop intermittently and then resume normal speed. This was in manual or the non-auto mode so the computer was not telling the blower to change speeds.
Over the course of a couple months and 5k miles it got worse. The rpm drop became larger and it wasn't maintaining my comfort level. At first I thought it might be a bearing going bad, but then I noticed that slamming a door or hitting a large bump would sometimes knock the motor back to its regular speed which meant the cause might be electrical and not mechanical. And I could even tap on the blower case and it would self correct.
There is no blower resistor network utilized with the climate control computer so I ordered a new blower motor online with high confidence that a replacement would solve my problem which it did. System is now back to running 100% as designed.
Swapping out the blower was a painless task and took less than 30 mins using an 8mm socket on the 3 base screws and a stubby Phillips screwdriver to remove a screw holding a metal bracket at the firewall.
I then took the defective motor apart for curiosity sake. Sort of. There are no user serviceable parts inside. The bearing was ok and there was no shaft wobble. You can't really get to the motor without cutting. There are some electrical components which I believe control the seven blower speed settings. Nothing was loose or burnt or corroded. The power plug terminals looked shiny and new. The failure in my opinion was the graphite dust residue all over the bottom of the fins. The brushes were likely compromised. I could hear a faint grinding noise when I turned the motor by hand while the new motor was silent. See pic. It's a shame this has to go in the trash....
Over the course of a couple months and 5k miles it got worse. The rpm drop became larger and it wasn't maintaining my comfort level. At first I thought it might be a bearing going bad, but then I noticed that slamming a door or hitting a large bump would sometimes knock the motor back to its regular speed which meant the cause might be electrical and not mechanical. And I could even tap on the blower case and it would self correct.
There is no blower resistor network utilized with the climate control computer so I ordered a new blower motor online with high confidence that a replacement would solve my problem which it did. System is now back to running 100% as designed.
Swapping out the blower was a painless task and took less than 30 mins using an 8mm socket on the 3 base screws and a stubby Phillips screwdriver to remove a screw holding a metal bracket at the firewall.
I then took the defective motor apart for curiosity sake. Sort of. There are no user serviceable parts inside. The bearing was ok and there was no shaft wobble. You can't really get to the motor without cutting. There are some electrical components which I believe control the seven blower speed settings. Nothing was loose or burnt or corroded. The power plug terminals looked shiny and new. The failure in my opinion was the graphite dust residue all over the bottom of the fins. The brushes were likely compromised. I could hear a faint grinding noise when I turned the motor by hand while the new motor was silent. See pic. It's a shame this has to go in the trash....