For some reason, a while back, I looked for a face dash vent on eBay. I am talking about the black hard plastic part with the vanes and the (mechanical) wheels on each end. Or so I thought.

Turns out, best I can figure, that some cars also came with a center wheel, seemingly with a hot/cold wheel (with an electrical connection).

In your case, I would try and do a bit of research to find out if your car is supposed to have this adjustment wheel, and whether you actually have it or not. Also, this wheel is supposed to be connected to the HVAC control module, so I would check that, too. Maybe the plug is just hanging, or a prior owner just swapped it out and never bothered with the plug. The electrical manual would be a good place to start for hard data.

Best case scenario, when this connector is off (which is what I believe this error code is telling you), the system defaults to "heat", meaning you have nice dry air from the A/C, but it is also warm because the system brings hot water into the heater core as well. Plugging this in into the right kind of vent would probably fix the problem.

Just my thoughts.

Best of luck, keep us posted.


Dash vent with 2 wheels




Dash vent with 3 wheels

 

Very interesting, and thanks for the difference-in-vents lesson....