Hi,

I have some cold/ambient (35F) air coming through the steering column fairing and near the blower motor while driving 70 mph. First I thought the cold air is a failing aux pump but it is fine. There must be some air coming inside trough the air intake under the windscreen. Does anyone know if there is a connection to the driver's side near the blower motor but do not affect the hot air through the normal ducts? I have ambient temperature air coming through the steering column and hot air through the driver's upper and bottom duct. The passenger side is fine.

Thanks, Ben

 

Are you sure there's not a firewall pass through rubber plug that may be coming out under pressure or has come out?

 

As the car is new to me. I bought it two weeks ago it is possible that a rubber plug is missing. The previous owner only drove the car during summer.
I looked at the firewall around the gas pedal from the inside but everything looked like in place. Do you know where I have to look further?

 

Pull out the air inlet cowl (where your wiper is) and check in there and the bulkheads (left and right of the firewall) as well.
Check where your throttle cable and other components come through, it may look good, but may be worn and with air pressure, it allow air through.
Try using a hair dryer, preferably one with a cold setting, and get a friend or wife (to assure her she'll get it back) to help you as you feel around.

 

You can also run a climate control self-test to see if there's been any motor faults detected (like a blend or recirc gate sticking and causing cold air to come in), see post 8 here https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...54/#post454861

 

I did the self-test already without a failure code. As well as the actuator test. Both are running fine. Yesterday I removed the small inset down left to the steering wheel to have a better view of the driver's blower. I will do a test drive today to investigate where the cold air comes from. Having the heater to 87F while the car is still standing cold air is blowing out the cowl (outside the car right before the windscreen) on the passenger side and a little bit less cold air on the driver's side. I think this is cold air from the climate control which is not needed?

 

I did some measurements today.

Ride at 75mph with outside temperature 37F. Cold air comes from behind the rev counter. Tested with the hand through the "opening shelf" left under the steering wheel.
Setting at AC control panel is : "heating only", "climate off", "no air recirculation", "82F", "face position", "fan speed 4".

When the AC is completely off, i.e. the OFF button on the left is pressed and the display is black, no cold air at all enters the interior. Additionally, you notice that the flaps close when the off button is pressed. Immediately after deactivating the air conditioning unit a short blast of cold air is released when the flaps are closed and then no cold air can be felt anymore.
"The XJ Climate Control System Student Guide" says: "When push OFF is pressed, the system is switched off and the fresh air or recirculation blower flaps are set to recirculation, shutting off outside air intake."

When the AC is running in AUTO mode there is no cold air coming from the area behind the tachometer, but despite the setting to 82F only lukewarm to cool air comes out of the nozzles. I think here the cold air is going another way an is then coming through the face vents.

If the setting "Heating only", "Climate off", "No recirculation", "82F", "Face position" and fan speed set to 0, then ice-cold air comes from the tachometer area.

If the air recirculation button is pressed when the setting is "heating only", "air conditioning off", "no recirculation", "82F", "face position", "fan speed 4", no cold air comes from the area
behind the tachometer, but the air recirculation mode end itself after 5 minutes (factory setting) and then cold air comes back immediately.


But I'm still not sure what is wrong. But after testing I think there is a maybe a flap problem even if I have no trouble code at all? Only if the recirculation mode is active or the system is completely OFF I have no cold air at all. Even if the system is turned ON, but the blower speed is set to 0 I get cold air.
At least I like to mention again that a sentence from my previous post:
"Having the heater to 87F while the car is still standing cold air is blowing out the cowl (outside the car right before the windscreen) on the passenger side and a little bit less cold air on the driver's side. I think this is cold air from climate control which is not needed?"

 

Was anyone able to pin point the problem here? I am in Canada and last winter we had -40c and I froze driving this 2002 Jag X-type. I need this fixed but would like to give the mechanics an idea what to look for.

 

i think it’s a crack in the knee panel ducting that does this

see if recirc stops it

 

Thank you! I will give that a try on a brisk morning.

 

I wish I had this problem. It’s hot as hell here in Florida right now.

 

Well, I like having cold air blowing around in the car but not in that spot! lol

 

 

It's not coming from there. It's a gap in the steering wheel column, on the bottom on it, that has cold air blowing out of it.

 

It's coming out of the space where the lever is to adjust the steering wheel. It blows quite hard and is very cold when the temperature is -40.

 

I must’ve completely glossed over when you said “X-type” in your first post. This is the X308 forum, you want to post in the X400 forum.

Anyways, what I would do is remove the lower steering column cover. If it’s blowing that hard, you should be able to pinpoint where the air is blowing from more accurately while driving.

 

Thanks again. I didn't see anyone else with this problem except for this post so I was hoping it was the same issue. I will post it there if I can't figure it out.

 

The most direct route from exterior to interior is via the seal around the steering column. I've had this problem ever since I had to replace the original column, as it's a major game getting the seal to reseat. Might be your problem?

Steering column seal