02 Auto A/C climate air mix damper oscillation

[mcmatt]

OK. This one might be fun. My wife noticed a rapid clicking noise coming from the passenger side of the dash. It turns out that it is a lever that controls the air mix hot/cold air damper. We have the automatic climate system. It seems that the lever is rapidly oscillating back and forth a couple of millimeters. I was able to make it stop by switching out of the AUTO setting and then turning the temp all the way each direction.

Anybody had anything similar???

Thanks!

[mcmatt]

No response or info here, but I found a Club Lexus forum where a lot of people have this same problem. It is a clicking noise in the passenger footwell. There has been a lot of success with removing and cleaning the air mix servo motor. It has position sensors in it that get dirty and also a wormgear that can get loose. I'll post results

[mcmatt]

The solution worked for the clicking noise from passenger footwell. The cause is a servo motor for the airmix damper that is "hunting" for position. The motor is easy to remove after removing the glovebox and a small piece of white duct that is held by one screw. You can remove the servo motor and carefully pry the clips to open it. Inside there is a motor, plastic gears and a variable resistance pot for position sense. The copper wipers and resistor material need to be cleaned and regreased with dielectric or nonconductive grease. The worm gear on the motor can also pop out of place so it needs to be repositioned. That is it. Pretty easy. The fix is supposed to last a long time. We'll see.

[LifeTech]

Great find!!

Thanx

LT

[mcmatt]

You bet. Thanks for noticing. I was expecting to have to remove the dash. I was glad to find otherwise