Heater failure
Discussion
Its easy once the Clams off, the hard part, so I'm told, is getting the calm off.
Yes, Lotus do know about and do have a "fix", they drill a couple of holes in the tray underneath the affected part. No they dont have an official recall on it, but my understanding is that any car that goes in and has the clam off has this work carried out. Bit of a cop out, on their part, but not a lot you can do.
Yes, Lotus do know about and do have a "fix", they drill a couple of holes in the tray underneath the affected part. No they dont have an official recall on it, but my understanding is that any car that goes in and has the clam off has this work carried out. Bit of a cop out, on their part, but not a lot you can do.
Mine went last month!!! Bought a new resistor (£60 incl p+p) and intend to take the clam off and fix myself. Don't fancy the £600ish bill for something so minor. I will also make sure i drill those holes (that lotus should have done in the first place) so it doesn't happen again!
Martyn
Martyn
It's possible to replace the resistor pack on some early model S2's without the clam coming off. If you've got a non-Aircon early S2 (i.e. one without the centre "face vents" in the cabin, beneath the controls) it's likely that you can fix it really easily:
Drivers side service panel off:
Look down passed the brake fluid reservoir towards the heater fan (you'll know it's this by the ducting pipe attached to it...) On the earlier cars, there's a resistor pack (actually, 2 simple coils of wire) that hang into the heater air box to keep them cool. You'll know if you have this as you should see an electrical connector going into the box:
Undo the screws and remove it, removing the electrical connector too:
That's how mine looked - the fan didn;t work on settings 1 and 2 - 3 actually bypasses the resistor pack and runs the fan on full speed/12v.
Off to Maplin: I used a 10W W/W 1R resistor for fan position 2 (Maplin part code H1R) and a higher resistance 10W W/W 2.2R for the slowest, fan position 1 setting (Maplin part code: H2R2)
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=2181&doy=3m3
I soldered them directly in place of the original coils so that they'd hang into the fan box/housing and allow them to be cooled, just like the originals. (as they're wire wound, they do get warm/hot, but they're ceramic, and won't catch fire!)
Then replaced the unit - all working again, saving me 400 quid the dealer quoted to take my clam off and fix it...
Drivers side service panel off:
Look down passed the brake fluid reservoir towards the heater fan (you'll know it's this by the ducting pipe attached to it...) On the earlier cars, there's a resistor pack (actually, 2 simple coils of wire) that hang into the heater air box to keep them cool. You'll know if you have this as you should see an electrical connector going into the box:
Undo the screws and remove it, removing the electrical connector too:
That's how mine looked - the fan didn;t work on settings 1 and 2 - 3 actually bypasses the resistor pack and runs the fan on full speed/12v.
Off to Maplin: I used a 10W W/W 1R resistor for fan position 2 (Maplin part code H1R) and a higher resistance 10W W/W 2.2R for the slowest, fan position 1 setting (Maplin part code: H2R2)
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=2181&doy=3m3
I soldered them directly in place of the original coils so that they'd hang into the fan box/housing and allow them to be cooled, just like the originals. (as they're wire wound, they do get warm/hot, but they're ceramic, and won't catch fire!)
Then replaced the unit - all working again, saving me 400 quid the dealer quoted to take my clam off and fix it...
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