Air Conditioning performance

Hi All, Its summer in Australia and toasty warm I have noticed the aircon struggling in the last couple of weeks. Its also doing something odd where one of the centre air vents is releasing cold air and the other air vent next to it and fed of the same tube had warmer air coming out of it. ie Left door vent - working as expected, left centre vent - cold air, right centre vent warmer air, right vent - cannot quite remember. I don't remember if being super warm or super cold. I thought maybe one of the mixers is playing up however upon inspection the two centre ones use the exact same tube so not sure how they can deliver air that's got a 20 degree celsius difference Lots of people complain about the foam on the air conditioner mixing doors losing foam and neither the heating or cooling work as efficiently Thought I would do a bit of surgery to inspect the doors and they are fine, the foam looks complete and in good condition on both doors (I must be the only one on the planet) One thing I did notice is the rear mixing door did not appear to move at all and is possibly stuck or possibly that's just how it is I was hoping someone could advise how to make the rear mixing door move I have read the following as prior research Repairing the �black foam coming out of vent� issue - Rennlist - Porsche Discussion Forums Interior vent debris - Page 2 - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...oam-issue.html Can someone please confirm whether the rear door only moves on heating/cooling or demister/dash or foot vents ? Does the car need to be running and warm ? I had it running for a few minutes and the heater and cooling appeared to be working OK however its much cooler today It could also simply be low on refrigerant however that is beyond my ability to measure without going to my mechanic Thanks for reading this and responding Regards Kurt

It's highly likely that the foam on the HVAC flaps/doors is disintegrating and/or has disintegrated, and that pieces of it are working their way through your vents. There is also a backing material that is clear-ish in color and may come off in pieces just like the foam. Plenty of posts on that topic as you have already found. Specific to your post, have you tried looking into the center vent with a strong light? In my case I recovered the large flap/door via the heater core removal method, but I was unable to get the other door to move and could not reach it to repair it. Now two years later my AC performance is reduced, so it's time for. me to get at that second flap.

Thanks, the foam on both flaps appears to be in very good condition and completely covers the panels beneath I will get in there with a vacuum cleaner today however I could not see any debris

These are notes for me on the door flap operation , others may find it useful You Tube 09:49 shows doors being moved through temp changes on heat door is forward on left hand side, moves backward as temp lowered low means door is open or as far away from the dash as possible You Tube 10:32 - pressed the middle button on right hand side to allow air out centre vents, this also opens the door , temp set to 72F /22C The following was also extracted from https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...-issue-16.html right heating position - cool moves forward left air to dash , this moves to divert to defroster or floor vents Door behind radio controls air flowing from defrost/dash/floor. Door under heater core(frunk access) control airflow from outside/recirculate and heat/cold The front door moves when you adjust the cabin temp between hot and cold. front door in LHD press centre button on air con vents moves front door back NB the above were all from LHD vehicles, not sure if its different in RHD, I will have to work that out For others you can fix the foam without cutting the console as per https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...oam-issue.html As I have a RHD car I need to get the air con degassed and cannot get that done as its Christmas and everyone is shut so am taking a slightly less elegant path As my foam is fine either way something else is going on.

Hi - I'm in Oz too (Sydney to be precise) and have just completed the process via the front air vents. This is how my blend doors looked before I tackled the process. Since doing it the A/C is nice and cool. It didn't, however, fix the windscreen getting 'iced'. I can feel a slight air flow still coming from the windscreen demister vents even thought I've only got the front vent selected. I'll leave it for a few weeks and then pull it all out and check to see if the tape is still in place but I think the 'thickness' of the Foam must have added a seal around the edges of the doors.

Did the first door on this yesterday, advice to others is to wear gloves or you will scratch the crap out of your hands and forearms I used a boxcutter to cut the plastic except for the bend where I used a soldering iron with a slotted screwdriver tip as the boxcutter kept slipping. The boxcutter should have caused less damage than other methods I have seen such as reciprocating saws and the like. On first inspection it looked like the foam was still in good condition however a simple touch with my fingers and a lot of it disintegrated. I used a couple of wheel woolies and the kitchen sink brush wrapped in a microfibre towel soaked in brake cleaner to remove the residue including the sticky crap left behind. A couple of mechanics picks also helped in some corners however from the through the dash method you cannot effectively clean the back of the panels which is a limitation of this mechanism. The second door looks like its going to be painful however my get my kid to help out as she has far smaller forearms and hands than I do. I used an aluminium backed tape that had a bitumen like substance on one side aimed at sealing rooves and the like as it would have some natural sound deadening and then some sticky foam sheets over the top so two layers on one side rather than both sides being covered. This should give the acoustic performance of the original material with a far lower deterioration time. The air con itself seems to be working OK so I wonder if there was just some crap stuck in there that prevented the doors from working cleanly in the first place. I think I will also get the air con refrigerant amount assessed at the next service in case its lower than expected as well.

Did the painful door today, or at least my wife did. Same basic techniques to clear the old foam and adhesive away with a lot of use of long picks I have. The aircon seems to work OK now however not overly different from beforehand , perhaps slightly cooler however as noted my foam appeared to be in place OK before I started and was probably working OK although would have deteriorated soonish so job done bar putting it back together. I only put a single layer of the bitumen backed aluminium tape and skipped the foam layer on top as my wife wasn't super keen to help further. I plan to use the soldering iron to stitch back the cuts in the ductwork to provide some mechanical strength rather than relying on tape for 10 years. I will also probably melt some paperclips in along the seams to provide some mechanical support.

did you do both doors ? the back one does the split between vents which seems to be what you are describing ?