ITT: I fix a Chrysler design flaw with Radio Shack parts

[Kompresshun]

Alright, so we bought our Jeep Commander about 9 months ago and so far it's been a great vehicle, BUT ever since we bought it the lights on the HVAC controls haven't worked. The only problem i've had since we purchased it, has been the Blower Motor Relay, which was only $30 and I swapped it out myself in 10min . So since i'm very OCD about noises and things not working, I started doing some research thinking "Oh, it's probably just a fuse or a some simple replacement bulbs", since everything else has been cheap so far. WRONG. Chrysler wants you to replace the whole HVAC control unit, due to a design flaw with the lights on the circuit board, and the part costs $150. Needless to say, I told them to go screw themselves and I continued doing research

So tonight, I had some free time so I made a trip to Radio Shack and bought some new bulbs that were the same voltage, ohms and nearly the same size as the factory ones. Then I proceeded to tear things apart

The subject:



Shifter bezel and cover have to be removed first:







Next up is removing the trim screws and taking out the control panel:





HVAC Controls before disassembling:





Then removing the back cover for the circuit board:



Circuit board removed, notice there are 3 tiny lights in bases around the circuit board, these are the issue obviously:



Bulbs removed, completely blacked out, looks like they got toasted pretty well:



New bulbs installed and soldered back to the circuit board:



Success!



Total cost: $6
Total time to complete: 45min

This should permanently fix the design flaw and saved me $144. It was a bit annoying, but well worth the effort. This thing has been unbelievably cheap and easy to work on so far and I normally despise Chrysler products but this one has definitely been an exception.

[Razi]

Fixing broken things ftw!

[audtatious]

Sweetness

Show Chrysler how to do it

[Jesda]

Iiiinteresting. Is this the root cause of the problem where the blower is full-on and full-off with no controls in between? The replacement unit I bought off ebay didnt work and the Ram is now back in south Texas being driven by my friend's mom. Its always hot down there so the blower at full blast is a non-issue.

Nice fix!

[AZhitman]

Well. Done.

I support ANYTHING that counters the pathetic "R-squared" (remove and replace) approach that the auto industry is passing off as "auto repair".

I'll go into more detail soon, but we're neck-deep in a project right now that's made me deeply disappointed in Nissan's current automotive engineering.

[Kompresshun]

Iiiinteresting. Is this the root cause of the problem where the blower is full-on and full-off with no controls in between? The replacement unit I bought off ebay didnt work and the Ram is now back in south Texas being driven by my friend's mom. Its always hot down there so the blower at full blast is a non-issue.

Nice fix!

No, actually that problem is due to the Blower Motor Relay in the dash, which has burnt out twice now and Dodge screwed me on the warranty when the first one failed. It's easy to get to though and after Dodge decided to not warranty the part, I found out that RockAuto has them for $3.87 a piece with a 1yr warranty. I bought 4 of them

The community for these things isn't so great, but there's info out there if you dig enough, I spent weeks looking for info for this. The Ram, Dakota, Durango, Commander, Grand Cherokee, and Liberty all share a lot of parts, so a lot of this stuff works for any of them in most cases.

[goody90q45]

......So tonight, I had some free time so I made a trip to Radio Shack and bought some new bulbs that were the same voltage, ohms and nearly the same size as the factory ones.......

You probably got these?



They work for Infiniti and Nissan (and Honda) interior lighting also. At 2 for about $1.50 they're a lot cheaper than replacing the whole component.

[Kompresshun]

Yep, those are the exact ones. I still have three left over too.

Nice to know they work in Nissan/Infiniti too, none have burned out in the I30 yet thankfully.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Radio Shack still sells discrete components?

[Dattebayo]

Radio Shack still sells discrete components?

Yep. I use stuff like this all the time for work. Most of the stores keep everything like that in a multicolored roll-out-shelf cabinet, so if you need something, be on the look out for that. But yeah, you can still buy ICs and stuff, too. (at a premium, tho)

I was thinking tho, a blower motor relay made the lights blow out? You gotta understand that anything that had a surge high enough to cause your lights to blow out might cause some problems with the other board components as well...

[Kompresshun]

I was thinking tho, a blower motor relay made the lights blow out? You gotta understand that anything that had a surge high enough to cause your lights to blow out might cause some problems with the other board components as well...

No it's an unrelated issue, I just happen to be familiar with the blower motor relay issue too. It has nothing to do with the lights though, The lights burn out because of the type they were using from the factory from what I've read.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

sooo... none of this crap was under warranty?

[Dattebayo]

sooo... none of this crap was under warranty?

For a 2006?

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Oh for some reason I thought he bought it NEW 9 months ago.
Hell, if it were Hyundai it'd still be under warranty... then again, maybe not. That might be powertrain only.

[Kompresshun]

No, it had 63k on it when we bought it, so no warranty and I didn't buy an extended warranty either. I mean honestly, I've spent less than $75 on repairs that would have been covered under warranty, and I would have already spent much more than that on an extended warranty. It also has 75,000 miles, so I would've already used a third party extended warranty too most likely. Most new car warranties don't cover everything beyond like 50k miles, the 100k warranties are almost always power train only.