Hi All! I just recently joined this forum but I have been reading lots of threads and suggestions which really helped me big time in fixing my car.

I have this problem wherein the smell of smoke from the outside goes inside the car especially during traffic. The is lighted/acivated but I can still smell it. Iwent over the read the threads pertaining to this issue and started following it. I have taken out the glove compartment box and started experimenting on each actuator.

The very top actuator (as shown on the picture) i believe is for the the defrost vent and this is working fine. The middle is the vent for the face and footwell.
The bottom actuator is the one the puzzles me. Is this the one for the air recirculation button wherein you can open and close th flaps to get fresh air? I pulled the screws off from it and tried to see if the shaft is working by putting the key in the ignition and turned on the ac/heater (same procedure i did for testing the other actuators). I felt some vibrations and a ticking sound -sounded like the gear inside is stucked. I pushed the recirc button on and off to see if the shaft will turn but it didn't.

At first, I was thinking that this actuator is already dead but i tried to swap the actuator positions (putting the bottom one to the top position) and tested it and it work fine.

Going back to my question, is this bottom actuator for opening/closing the flap to get fresh airwhenever you press the recirc button?

Appreciate any comments!

 

Sorry, i forgot to attach the pic so here it is...

 

Better picture...

 

Have you changed the cabin air filter? That would definitely help.

 

Thanks Alfadude...I did change the cabin air filter but i guess the problem is the recirculation is not working (did not hear any change in sound when pressing it on and off).

I found 3 actuators underneath the glove compartment and im sure two of those, the top and the middle ones, are not for air recirculation but the bottom one, i dont know what is that for.

 

Yeah, when you hit the recirculation button and you have the fan going pretty strong you will definitely hear it change over. Hope you can sort it all out easy enough. Their is a known issue with the blend door that affected earlier models. There is a wealth of info on here about that , as well as the actuators.

 

The bottom actuator in the picture is the temperature blend door.... according to JTIS.