Was going to toss the dash from my project car and saw dash harnesses go for $150 on eBay so removed. Saw this part. This tube on this part connects to a vent in the boot release switch. The third pic shows its fan. Have no idea of its purpose.

 

That’s called an aspirator assembly. It’s for the climate control system. Has a temp sensor and a fan together.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I've never seen this thing on any of my cars. Is it on all 1999-2003 JX8s? Under the dash maybe?

 

The red circle is the intake of that little fan. I *think* the aspirator is primarily for the “auto” in the climate control.
To the best of my knowledge, every X308 has one.

 

I think the same part was used on the x300 i had. A2B’s description tracks with what I found on the 300. Had to blow out the little air intake once as it was full of garbage,

 

And I thought the black blob on the dash was the temp sensor. I guess this constantly sucks in a little bit of cabin air to monitor the temp.
Sounds worth putting the vacuum nozzle on when cleaning the car so it doesn't block up as that'd make the climate control slow to react to changes.

 

Whether you vacuum it or blow it with compressed air, be careful. That little fan moves very quickly with ease and could grenade moving that fast. Ask me how I know! 😂

 

Cheers for the warning, but as I don't think I've ever vacuumed out my XJR it's not a big risk for me. I use it so little & try to keep it clean so it hasn't needed it yet.

 

Most modern cars have one of these sorts of thing somewhere, sometimes obvious and other times not so. But wether or not you have the auto settings switched on it’s always monitoring the temperature in the cabin and making adjustments here and there. The actual sensor itself looks like a MAF sensor and should be treated with the same delicacy when cleaning.