Hi All,

I have a 2002 Volvo S60... about a year ago I started getting a little whistle noise with the AC/Heat... took it to an auto zone the guy told me it was my blower motor slowly going. Well here we are a year or so later, and boy is that whistle loud and annoying! It is at it's worst when I actually don't have the fan on or blowing anything. I can hear it coming from behind my glove compartment. The car has 154,000 miles on it. My mechanic says it's a very expensive thing to replace and it's best for me to suck it up if I can since I am not in a great financial position to replace it. Do you guys believe that is also the motor? Or could it be the motor resistor? I saw that may be a different part. Also how realistic is it for me to replace?


Side note: transmission fluid I am always torn on. I read the sticky on it... but I had half of my fluid taken out and replaced 1.5 years ago (the oil change place didn't have right equip to take it all out or something?). Noticed it's brown but my mechanic also says let it be. My fear is that is blows. I'd like to get this baby to 200k and then get rid of it before I need to do the timing belt again....

Thank you all!!
Pete

 

If the whistle is still there when the blower is off, then try hearing underneath the hood, at the left side of the engine, there is a small cooling fan for the main computer unit box. also check the belts and pulleys nearby, one of them might be about to seize and that's very risky for the engine.

 

Thanks...! I will check under the hood next time it makes the noise badly. Of course the past 24 hours it has been very quiet. How would I know if it is the blower motor for certain? And how tough might it be for me to replace?

 

It take perhaps 30 minutes to remove it from there. The only difficulty is that it has 5 philips screws of which 3 are not easily accessible, I think an angle screw driver helps much, but I did removed them with a regular screw driver (the shorter the better). The glove box and the plastics trims around need to come out, there are 2 electrical connectors on the box. Also the small damper at the right side of the glove box, the upper part breaks if removed, better only remove the lower screw after having the glove box moved forward.

 

I opened the hood and listened left of the engine did not hear a peep that is like the noisy whistle noise coming from the glove compartment... am i safe to assume it is the motor then??

 

From your description, I understand the noise happens with the engine running and the car either parked or moving. At this point, you hear the noise inside the car but not underneath the hood. This excludes the ECU fan, the transmission, the power steering, the a/c compressor, the engine pulleys and also a clogged PCV box (all these would make a noise but heard inside the engine bay). A little check would be to remove the cover of the ECU box underneath the hood, to listen inside (it's near the left wall of the engine bay, towards the front of the car). What is confusing is the noise is present with the blower off. I don't think the resistor would cause that noise.

Here's a DIY to remove the blower, but I don't think your description points to it.
http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/for...hp?f=9&t=21343