passenger heat vent blows cold

[jl_rotary]

a buddy and i were going snowboarding the other week and he kept blasting the heat to the floor....he was roasting me out. then we noticed my 2001 outback was blowing cold air only on the passengers side floor and only the outer vent, the inner vent was blowing hot....

common issue?
any ideas?
is it just the vent ducting underneath the dash?
is this manually controlled with a rod or vaccum controlled?

[peter94121]

I am having this problem on my 2006 OB XT and my mechanic has another in the shop now with this problem. Just started within the past couple of months. Airflow on passenger side is weak and cool.
If I find out more I will let you know.

[nipper]

SUbarus use electric motors and blend doors. It can be one fo the blend doors isnt functioning. I dont know how the 2001 is plumbed.

nipper

[peter94121]

My mechanic said they could not do warranty repairs and I have brought it to the dealer, Putnam Subaru. They now tell me that there is a service notice that if the difference between the passenger and driver sides is 15 degrees or less then no repair is authorized. I told them there is zero heat coming out the passenger side, but they are balking. Is it lawyer time?

[nipper]

Time to call in the zone rep from the factory.

nipper

[xnavnuc]

Originally posted by nipper
Time to call in the zone rep from the factory.

nipper

What he said, and then some! Most of my parts tear down experience is with pre-2000 vintage Subies and they all had a single 'blend valve' on the outlet of the heater core plenum box. So what you describe tells me there is/are more than one such valve in the interior plumbing and that is just a pain in the tush to work on. Most garages hate cabin heating problems due to the efforts necessary to get at stuff to properly troubleshoot.

[BobbyJ]

I have the same problem with my 06 Outback XT. The dealer, Avondale Auto Group, keeps telling me nothing is wrong. I hadn't heard about the 15 degree difference between vents as a requirement to repair the problem or the service bulletin. I'm going to take it back to the shop try to get something done.

[peter94121]

Update
======
I advised Putnam to drive the car to confirm the problem, since when the car is sitting still the ambient air is warmed and blown in. They agreed there was a problem.

They opened a case with the factory and were told to first try flushing the coolant AND the heater core that sits behind the dash. Evidently flushing the heater core is a separate step not typically performed.

Putnam tells me they had to flush the heater core 6 times until it ran clear, they were getting sludge when they did so.

This has apparently fixed the problem - after driving the car long distance on interstate and on mountain roads on a long weekend trip its still ok - I have heat on the passenger side, and there is more heat per temperature setting coming out. A setting of 70 gives me the heat I used to get at a setting of 76.