Heater trouble and codes

My wife was driving the SVX and the heater, which had been working suddenly started blowing cold air. This continued for about an hour and then magically fixed itself and went back to hot air. I have searched on the other threads and seen that this is not an uncommon sort of problem. One thread mentioned the diagnostic codes you can get by holding Off and Auto button at the same time you start the car. Is there somewhere that enumerates these codes?? Mine said 00 for a few seconds and then 41.

I also looked at the lever under the dash which sounds like the standard culprit and it moves when you switch between vent and Auto... but at this point the heat is working. If the door was in the proper position to provide heat while she was driving... why would it move to the wrong position and make cold? Any ideas?

Thanks in Advance.

ps If this car has many more problems I think she will make me sell it. She already HATES the inability to blow warm air out the upper vents to warm her hands. The SVX heater seems overdesigned ... we never had trouble with the simple but effective heaters on our old DL or XT?

[svxistentialist]

Erik

Looks like good news.

My Japanese car has different A/C than the US models, but I have a US workshop manual.

The routine you performed, switching Ign ON with OFF and AUTO held checks out the system for current faults. 00 coming up means there are no "current" faults. Good news!

Your older problem would be stored in the memory, but you need the Select Monitor, the main dealer computer device, to look into them.

The 41 shows up after about 9 seconds. This is the first of five stages for checking output equipment. It will click on up in steps to 45 each time you press Def. Don't know exactly what each position is checking though. Would do no harm for you to cycle through these to see if it throws up a code or anything untoward.

When I perform the same thing in mine, the diagnostic procedure runs a sequence of tests on everything, first the lights and then the doors and motors and so on. A blinking number will say which is malfunctioning. 13 very often comes up if you do not direct a light at the sunload sensor on top of the dash.

Hope this helps

Joe

[Jamsvx]

Slaps head.....sorry Michelle and Blake for saying you had something wrong...best to check the error codes with the manual and realise that '13' will come up when you run the test at night!!

[Earthworm]

I have the instructions on checking the climate control codes on my SVXIW 2.0 page in my sig. There's a PDF file there with more thorough information of what's going on during the test.

[svxistentialist]

Thanks David

That pdf contains some Really Useful Stuff

Joe

Originally posted by Earthworm
I have the instructions on checking the climate control codes on my SVXIW 2.0 page in my sig. There's a PDF file there with more thorough information of what's going on during the test.

Wow that is a great resource, Thanks!. The heater problem seems intermittent. I haven't been able to reproduce the problem and it doesn't report any error codes. I'll have to show my wife how to do this... whe drives the car more often than I do.

I did see one thing on your site that caught my eye...
"The 4WS warning light indicates a problem with the 4 wheel steering system..." SVX's have 4 wheel steering??? I don't imagine this was a common option?

[svxistentialist]

Originally posted by Erik Johnson


Wow that is a great resource, Thanks!. The heater problem seems intermittent. I haven't been able to reproduce the problem and it doesn't report any error codes. I'll have to show my wife how to do this... whe drives the car more often than I do.

I did see one thing on your site that caught my eye...
"The 4WS warning light indicates a problem with the 4 wheel steering system..." SVX's have 4 wheel steering??? I don't imagine this was a common option?

It really rare.

Only came on the top Japanese spec in 91-92. Was dropped shortly after.

Supposedly complex and buyers did not like the costs involved if repairs became necessary.

To my knowledge, the only Forum Members who have it are Phil and Belha from Buckinghamshire with their Black over Claret car. {B3lha} It's posible other members owning JDM cars have it [mine doesn't] so there could be some in England or Australia where these imports surface, but never heard anyone else claim to have it.

Joe