Hi All,
According to my service advisor, it is relatively common to have debris caught in the squirrel fan for the F10 heating and Air Conditioning (hereafter known as the HVAC Blower). If you look on YouTube, you’ll find some fairly inadequate videos on how to replace the HVAC blower.
The job is actually quite easy, and if you take your time, you can do the job in a couple of hours, start to finish.... going slowly... :-)
The problem with the fan is that the foam filter screen designed to keep debris out of the fan disintegrates over time, allowing leaves and garbage to get into the squirrel cage (fan). Once in the squirrel cage, the debris cause the fan to be unbalanced, create turbulence, and create quite a noise on high speed, in addition to inefficiencies associated with not moving air as it should. If you have this problem, you will know it.
My BMW dealer quoted me $1,745 to replace the filter box and HVAC fan. I was able to do it for about $270 using the same factory parts.
First, do not pay the $500-ish dollars for the BMW HVAC blower. Go to FCP-Euro or similar online supplier
and purchase the OEM Behr blower for about $180. Then... purchase the redesigned filter box from your dealer or an online supplier for about $74.
The steps required to replace the HVAC fan are relatively simple:
1. Disconnect the negative of the battery.
2. Remove the plastic tray over the passenger side firewall (three plastic clips)
3. Remove the factory aluminum brace (two bolts)
4. Remove the plastic electronics box lid (four torx screws)
5. Remove one 12V wire from the right side of the electronics box (10mm bolt)
6. Remove one torx screw from the left front side of the electronics box.
7. Fold the electronics box forward on the wires connected to it.
8. Remove the connector from the sensor on the filter box.
9. Remove the filter box (four torx screws)
10. Remove the two connectors from the fan assembly.
11. Remove the three torx screws from the fan assembly and remove it. It is a bit of a tight fit to work out the fan assembly, but not too bad.
12. Disconnect the two plugs from the fan and fan controller on the fan assembly
13. Remove four screws to split the fan assembly.
14. Remove four screws that clamp in the fan and remove the fan and replace it.
15. Reverse your steps.
Make sure you watch the YouTube Video here:
As it will give you a rough idea on how it looks to do this job.
When I removed my fan, I found a bunch of leaves in the squirrel cage. I could have just cleaned out the squirrel cage rather than remove it, but when I felt the endplay on the HVAC fan, it was a bit excessive so I just replaced it.
What a difference. To go from jet airplane loud on max ac to whisper quiet was quite a change.
How in the world BMW service comes up with their prices, I have no idea. The next time I were to do this job, I could EASILY do it in one hour. A BMW service mechanic who has done more than one of these could easily do it in the same amount of time, which SHOULD make the replacement cost (even with the CRAZY priced BMW fan) around $800 with tax. Talk about price gouging. Sheesh.
Hope this helps someone in the future.
Joe