Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW TO.

Chat about your 9n Polo (inc GT and Fun)
K.I.T.T.
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Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW TO.

Post by K.I.T.T. »

A common problem on the 9n Polo is the V68 motor playing up. The main symptom is the blower doesn't blow air at the temperature you've selected. It usually blows hot air when it's set to cold. Restarting the car, or turning the thermostat from fully hot to fully cold can cure the problem momentarily, but it'll soon start to play up again.

This can end up being a very expensive job at the dealer. Many say this is a dash out job. This guide disproves that and will show you how to do it less than a couple of hours. Before you start anything, make sure your ventilation is at the coldest setting, and then turn it off (blower at “0”).

Before you rush out and buy a new V68 motor (they are £100+), jump to my post below this and attempt the "pikey fix". All you need is a £3 can of contact cleaner and about 20 minutes.


Replacing the V68 motor and VCDS adaptation


Tools required:

T15 torx screwdriver
Flathead screwdriver
Replacement v68 motor 6q0 907 511 - £103 + VAT
Replacement bracket* 6q0 820 892 - £4.40 + VAT
Junior Hacksaw*
VAG-COM / VCDS

*only needed if you snap the clip of the original bracket. See step 13.

1. First of all, you have to remove the passenger side lower dash. In the passenger footwell, look up and you’ll see this piece of trim that covers the pollen filter housing. Remove the two torx screws and pull the trim piece off.

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2. There’s a flexible plastic trim piece in front of the gearbox and immediately under the heater controls.

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This simply pulls off.

3. Unscrew the two torx scews.

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4. Now, you can pull up the piece of trim surrounding the gear lever. It’s simply clipped in. Grasp it at both sides and pull it upwards and then towards the rear of the car. You don’t need to remove it completely.

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5. There are two torx screws that have to be removed. One directly below the heater controls and one which is under the ashtray, or thereabouts.

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6. Now, look at the underside of the “shelf” in front of the glovebox. Unscrew the 3 torx screws.

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7. The shelf can now be removed completely. Take it out and put it somewhere where it won’t be in the way. With the shelf out of the way, 3 torx screws that secure the bottom of the glovebox are now visible. Unscrew them.

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8. Open the glovebox. Unscrew the three torx screws securing the top of the glovebox to the dash. The torx screw in the middle holds the catch for the glovebox door and is slightly longer than the remaining torx screws.

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9. The glovebox is still pretty secure. You can’t make it out too well in this pic, but there are wo small slots on either side of the top of the glovebox.

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Get a cloth to protect the plastic and use a flat head screwdriver to wedge the glovebox out.

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The glovebox can now be removed completely.

10. With the glovebox out of the way, the passenger side footwell vent is visible. Unscrew the single torx screw that secures the vent to the blower assembly. To remove the vent, grasp it at the bottom and rotate the vent clockwise (green arrow) and yank it in the direction of the red arrow. It may feel like you’re about the break it, but you have to put some effort into it. Even with the torx screw removed, it’s still clipped in quite well.

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11. With the vent removed, the motor itself is now visible. It’s held in place with a single clip. Unclip it and remove the purple plug at the bottom. It’s a bit fiddly as the wiring is clipped in to the motor housing. There’s no way of explaining how to free the wiring, but if you got this far, you’ll figure it out. Took me a couple of minutes at most.

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12. Remove the motor and bracket.

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13. The motor can be wedged out of the bracket using a flat head screwdriver. Now, I was a bit of a plonker and managed to snap the clip of the bracket. If you managed to get away without breaking this, ignore this step. However, it is quite easy to break the clip.

If your car had manual air con (climatic), you may have had a small bracket with space for a single motor (strangely, it has no art number printed on it). It appears this bracket has been discontinued and they only produce the bracket which was used in cars with the digital climatronic air con (6q0 820 892). This is twice the size of the other bracket as it also holds in the V168 defrost flap motor.

Original bracket on right, bigger bracket in the centre and motor on the right

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Obviously, if you have climatronic, you need the bracket for two motors. Whilst the bigger bracket will also fit cars with climatic, it’s quite fiddly as there’s not much room behind the dash and towards the top, it’s extremely tight with a wiring loom for the blower motor in the way. So, get a hacksaw and do this:

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14. Clip your replacement (or "pikey fixed") motor into the bracket. Note the two protrusions on the bracket.

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15. Now, note the “double teeth” on the cog as highlighted below.

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If we look at the temperature flap itself, you can notice this has “double teeth” as well.

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16. The protrusions in the motor bracket (step 14) go in these locating holes found in the blower assembly:

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The hole at the top is used for the larger bracket (or non pikeyed one…)

Reattach the purple connector to the motor. Check the orientation, it only fits one way. Now, align the bottom bracket protrusion with the lower hole in the blower assembly and use this as a lever, pushing towards the firewall and the other protrusion should locate into the top hole.

17. Now, locate the “double teeth” on both the flap and the V68 motor and align them. The flap and motor should then fit snugly into place. In my case, the motor was in the position where the flap is fully closed (coldest setting). This corresponds to the position of the flap without the motor in place. I had to gently pull the flap towards me a little (there’s only a little give, be gentle) and then pushed the cog of the motor on.

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This may not be the case for you, but as long as you align the “double teeth”, you’ll be fine.

18. Clip the motor bracket back in and tidy the wiring up, ie, secure it using the clips on the bracket.

Image


VCDS adaptation procedure to be added shortly
Last edited by K.I.T.T. on Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:49 pm, edited 5 times in total.
K.I.T.T.
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by K.I.T.T. »

V68 pikey fix

If you're feeling brave (or are skint, like me), you can try fixing the motor. Whilst this isn't guaranteed to fix the problem, the potentiometer in the motor housing is almost always to blame for the motor playing up.

The pot gets gunk inside it making the resistance readings the car sees unreliable. The resistance of the pot is associated with the position of the motor cog and hence the V68 flap. If the car can't correctly determine the resistance, it doesn't know the position of the flap, hence why the air temperature is unexpected.

Now, when I tried this, I wasn't sure it was going to work and didn't take any pictures and can't document it as well as I'd have liked to. If I can get a spare V68 motor for cheap (or someone wants to donate me their knackered motor and the cost of return shipping), I'll rewrite this in more detail.

You are your own warranty. I will not be held liable for any adverse consequences that may occur if you follow what is written below.

The back of the motor casing is held on by a number of tabs. The two halves can be seperated quite easily with a flat head screwdriver.

Read through this first before actually doing it. You'll see why shortly (step 3)...



UPDATE: motor disassembly tips from Rick Ward.
Click for original post

1. I had a lot of trouble releasing the motor bracket from the car. My car already had the larger bracket fitted although it only had one motor, so there were 2 clips to release. After trying to push the little protruding tab in both directions for quite some time without the bracket releasing, the method that finally worked for me was to move the tab towards the bracket by squeezing them both together with a pair of pliers, and pulling the bracket away slightly at the same time. If you've got the larger bracket too repeat this with the upper clip.
2. If you're doing the Pikey Fix, When you've got the top cover off the motor, to release the potentiometer, first remove the motor from the assembly simply by pulling it out. It may need levering slightly to unclip it from the casing. Then slide the potentiometer and the socket upwards out of the assembly together (by socket I mean the electrical socket that protrudes out of the assembly). The potentiometer will then pull out of the socket.
3. I tested my pikey fix before I put the motor back on the car:- After repairing and assembling the motor assy, but before you put the black cover on the motor, you can plug it into the cars wiring harness just hanging loose, and with ignition on and turning the temperature control between it highest and lowest settings, the motor should move backwards and forward its full travel (about half a turn).


1. When opened, you will see this:

Image

You have to remove the blue pot. This is quite fiddly to do (but nothing compared to getting it back in) and hard to document how to without more detailed pictures. However, it took me a couple of minutes to figure it out. Note there's an arrow on the pot (about 2 o'clock in the pic).

2. Prise up (bend) the black cover out of the way like so:

Image

The cover is quie brittle and it's easy to snap. I snapped mine but used a few thin strips of insulating tape to hold it back in place later, so don't worry to much about breaking it. You can make this out below:

Image

Anyway, with the black cover prised out of the way, spray some contact cleaner in there. Be generous, a 200ml can only costs £3. Spray enough so it overflows and then rotatate the black cover / pot clockwise and anticlockwise. Repeat this a few times, ie. Spray, rotate, repeat. Then tape it back up if required.

3. Remove the small white cog at the top of the motor housing. Now, rotate the black cog clockwise from behind (looking at the motor as in the picture below) until it no longer moves.

Image

The "double teeth" will be in roughly the position as shown above. Now, put the pot back in in such a way (rotate the black cover) so that when inserted, the arrow is pointing in the (roughly) 2 o'clock direction as opposed to the 8 o'clock direction. Putting the pot back in is really tricky...I had to break off the two black mounting points in the housing into which the blue protrusions of the pot slide into. The pot is still secure as theres a protrusion just below the big white cog that fits into a recess in the pot.

If you can get the small white cog out without removing the pot, you don't have to remove the pot as in step 2. This makes things slightly easier. It just means you wont be able to rotate the pot as far clockwise and anticlockwise (indefinite rotation when the pot is removed) due to the black cog having stops on either end limiting this motion. However, if you rotate the pot / black cog as far as it will go in both directions with contact cleaner in a few times, you'll get the same result. I only figured this out after i had done step 2.

Now put the cover back on the housing and make sure the tabs engage. You may have to slightly bend three of the contacts (the pot) back into position for the electrical plug to fit back on.

If all goes well, your motor should be back to how it should be. If not, you'll need a new motor.

The way I see it, this is a no brainer. Best case scenario, you save £100. Worst case scenario, well, you would have gone and bought a new motor anyway - so no harm done.

Ash :)
Last edited by K.I.T.T. on Sun Sep 16, 2012 7:31 pm, edited 5 times in total.
wildman_33
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by wildman_33 »

Thankyou for posting this up i will be needing this in the next few days although vw say they have no motors left in the uk at the moment and it could be up to 2 weeks until i can get one :(
K.I.T.T.
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by K.I.T.T. »

I managed to "fix" mine, took about half an hour and some contact cleaner...

I'll try and write a how to for that in my second post, but diassembling the motor is really tricky (and you actually have to "break" off some of the internals to get it back together again) and it's a bit tricky to explain it in words.

And, I didn't take that many pics of the internals either :( (wasn't sure it'd work). There's a chance you'll brick the motor whilst you do it, but the way I see, you don't lose anything if you do, and if you manage to fix it, you've saved yourself £100...

I'll update my post over the next few days with the VCDS stuff and how to attempt to fix it, pikey style.

If I was still in London, I'd tell you to come round and show you how to do it!

Ash :)
wildman_33
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by wildman_33 »

I think ill try to fix it too as i have nothing to lose. Where did you get the contact cleaner from as this is something ive never used before. For all the VCDS stuff ill probably give my dealers a try as they did a few things on my old 6N2 for free.
K.I.T.T.
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by K.I.T.T. »

Maplin or any electronics store should stock some. Cost about £3.50 for a 200ml can.

Ash :)
K.I.T.T.
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by K.I.T.T. »

Added "pikey fix" to post 2. Will update post 1 with VCDS coding and screenshots over the next few days.

Ash :)
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by RUM4MO »

I've kept my old B5 Passat's A/C going by "hammering" these motors using VCDS in BASIC SETTINGS that seems to work for - well maybe a year now though I have not tried to mess about with the temperature too much since then. I needed to take this action as it ended up with the car just getting far to hot back a year past May or so. I do have a new motor in the boot to be used if it becomes necessary - but that really seems to mean a complete dash out in that car. Wife's Polo with Climatronic also has an annoying lot of flap motor action going on sometimes for no apparent reason - so it might need some attention soon, it does throw out some flap motor fault codes now and again. One thing though K.I.T.T. you mention and show a trim panel below the dash - my wife's car - bought new September 2002 does not have any lower dash trims - just empty places for captive nuts! What age is your 9N Polo?

One thing that annoys me about VAG is that this flap motor problem has been reported on Golf + Passat + Polo forums for years and still as newer models are launched they end up having these problems and in every case it means, at least at dealer level, to be a "dash out" to fix them - and there seems to be talk of new improved motors - but it still seems to be more of the same.
wildman_33
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by wildman_33 »

Thanks for posting up the guide on fixing the motor hopefully I will have a look at this next week after I have done my exams at uni.
K.I.T.T.
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by K.I.T.T. »

RUM4MO wrote: One thing though K.I.T.T. you mention and show a trim panel below the dash - my wife's car - bought new September 2002 does not have any lower dash trims - just empty places for captive nuts! What age is your 9N Polo?
Do you mean this?:
Image

It's a 2003 Polo on a 53 plate. I can't see model year having to do anything with it...has it ever been to the stearlers? My bet is they took it out and "forgot" to put it back in!
One thing that annoys me about VAG is that this flap motor problem has been reported on Golf + Passat + Polo forums for years and still as newer models are launched they end up having these problems and in every case it means, at least at dealer level, to be a "dash out" to fix them - and there seems to be talk of new improved motors - but it still seems to be more of the same.
True. When I was ordering the motor bracket, I priced up a V68 motor just in case I couldn't get mine working again. It came up to £103. I asked the parts guy if it was a common problem on Polos, only to be told "no, just on the Mk4 Golfs". Funnily enough when he checked stock, the motors were on backorder..."not a common problem..." Yeah right :roll:
Wife's Polo with Climatronic also has an annoying lot of flap motor action going on sometimes for no apparent reason - so it might need some attention soon, it does throw out some flap motor fault codes now and again.
Climatronic, ie the electronic climate control with the digital display? That has yet another flap motor (defroster flap motor). All the flap motors seem to be rubbish. When I ran basic settings, my recirc flap motor gave an error, but when cleared and left alone it worked fine. I've never had a problem with the recirc motor, so I'll leave it for now, in spite of what vagcom says.

My theory is, if the controls are just left at a constant setting and not messed with, the rheostats get gunked up as there's no movement. I left my temperature dial at coldest for well over a year- at this setting, the flap is fully open and just draws in outside air at whatever temperature it is. I'd leave it at 18 - it keeps the motor busy (you can hear it moving about adjusting temperature).

Same with the recirc motor. Whilst I never really use the recirc button, I always reverse into spots, so the recirc motor is usually used once or twice on every drive keeping it busy too.

The whole replacement / fix can be done without using vagcom imo. As long as the teeth are aligned (it's impossible to install them otherwise anyway), you'll be fine. I'd just turn the dials all the way round once a week to make sure the motor's being used.

Ash :)
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by RUM4MO »

K.I.T.T. yes that was the trim I was meaning, I collected this car brand new from Holland only a few days after it had jumped off the assembly line in Spain so its been like that from new. There was a vague feeling, from folk on VAG forums, that it might be good to run BASIC SETTINGS annually using the VAS tool or VCDS just in case the flap motor, or at least its positional voltage feedback had changed and the motor ended up stalled because it was now at the flap's end stop but not yet at the correct voltage that had previously been saved as that end stop voltage.
wildman_33
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by wildman_33 »

Right ive been out trying to fix it and have got as far as removing the bracket from the car. I have manages to remove the two lower brackets but the top one appears to be stuck and im not sure which direction to pull it in to release it. I have tried pulling it quite hard but there still no movement.
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by Rick Ward »

Thanks K.I.T.T. for taking the time to write and post this procedure, and saving me a lot of time and money. Just done mine including Pikey Fix and it now appears to work fine. I would just like to add a couple of points to help anyone else attempting this.

1. I had a lot of trouble releasing the motor bracket from the car. My car already had the larger bracket fitted although it only had one motor, so there were 2 clips to release. After trying to push the little protruding tab in both directions for quite some time without the bracket releasing, the method that finally worked for me was to move the tab towards the bracket by squeezing them both together with a pair of pliers, and pulling the bracket away slightly at the same time. If you've got the larger bracket too repeat this with the upper clip.
2. If you're doing the Pikey Fix, When you've got the top cover off the motor, to release the potentiometer, first remove the motor from the assembly simply by pulling it out. It may need levering slightly to unclip it from the casing. Then slide the potentiometer and the socket upwards out of the assembly together (by socket I mean the electrical socket that protrudes out of the assembly). The potentiometer will then pull out of the socket.
3. I tested my pikey fix before I put the motor back on the car:- After repairing and assembling the motor assy, but before you put the black cover on the motor, you can plug it into the cars wiring harness just hanging loose, and with ignition on and turning the temperature control between it highest and lowest settings, the motor should move backwards and forward its full travel (about half a turn).
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chewy
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by chewy »

Im going to have to give this ago soon too.
Martifers
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Re: Air con not working right? Replace the V68 motor - HOW T

Post by Martifers »

Just completed this repair on my 02. I had the double bracket so once removed, I cut off the excess before replacing it. I bought a replacement motor but it came with a different bracket and swing arm so I swopped the internals over between the two motors. Big thanks K.I.T.T for the original post and the pikey method which helped explain the internals along with the motor removal tip from Rick Ward which made it extremely easy.

Many thanks

Tom
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