1996 Ford Taurus. I’ve done everything according to schedule and taken very good care of it. It’s been strange lately, where it seems like I always have to use defrost, no matter what the weather. Since I’ve primarily driven just for hospital & Dr appointments I haven’t had enough time or energy to see if something was truly wrong (and it didn’t bother me using defrost 100% of the time instead of heat etc). Yesterday I went to get a few groceries and I had to turn the blower all the way up to get it to do anything. Then today when I started the car, noxious smoke came spewing out the vents. It was a terrible burning smell and the fan didn’t function at all. In fact, when I turned the fan and the car off, smoke kept billowing out for a good 10 minutes thereafter.
Anyone here have an idea what might have happened? Is this fixable? This is kind of frightening as I don’t think we have the funds to get a replacement car. Thanks for any help/advice.
Sounds like your heater fried. That won’t affect your engine in most cases, AFAIK. Just take it in and get the heat system fixed. You may have ruined the fan by working it when it was dying. Could be a simple belt replacement (well, relatively simple…not DIY simple).
Sounds like the fan heater blower motor. Do you keep anything on the dash? Something may have fallen down there and jammed the fan up. It should have blown the fuse before that happened.
Try pulling the fuse out and double check your Radiator level to make sure the heater core isn’t junk too. Then take it in and get it fixed.
Should be a couple of hundred depending on where the fan’s mounted. If the fan isn’t buried it’s easy to change. The other thing that needs to be checked is the resistor array for the heater switch. If the fan has been binding up it heats up the control that selects the fan speed. That control is usually controlled by a resistor array and you should get an estimate on replacing that at the same time or at least get it tested to make sure it’s not half way fried. You don’t want to pay for them to do what should be one job twice and charge you for both separately.
Whether it’s the fan or the belt, it’s probably a good idea to replace both in this case. It sounds like you don’t know a lot about it, so I recommend using a professional. I’d say less than $500 anyway, depending on the parts and their cost. Could be as low as $200. Certainly won’t be the disaster you were worried about in your original post.
When this happened to me, it was a ruptured heater coil. Same exact symptoms - in fact, I called the fire department because I though for a few minutes that my car was actually /on fire./
Yeah, I was gonna say heater coil too. I think cost depends on the car, and how it’s oriented in the engine compartment. About 10 years ago, on a 10 year old car, the repair was going to be $1000- $1500 or so if I recall correctly. (Never got it repaired, was a good excuse for a new car)
Heater Coil? Taurus’s don’t use heater coils. They use heater cores. It looks like a small radiator. In fact, most heat exhangers used in water cooling a PC are car heater cores. Hot engine coolant is piped through it, and the blower fan pushes are through it to heat the air and to warm the cabin.
If the heater core was bad, you would have coolant leaking out of it. That’s the only way they go bad.
My bet is the fan blower motor, or the relay that controls them. They are mountd on passenger side. Most of the time they are 3 bolts to remove and one plug connector to disconnect and they are out. Blower motors are around 40-50 bucks.
Edit: Shopbook says 1.2 hours of labor to change a blower motor. Depending on labor rates in your area, should be not more than 300 to change the blower motor.
Everyone… thanks so much for all the great help and feedback. I feel a little better about taking it in for an estimate, but still feel like I’m playing roulette (it could be a resonable expense - or it might be prohibitively expensive). I have a few more things I thought about and hope it can maybe help me be more infomed when I take it in.
I hadn’t thought this was pertinent before… but considering the placement maybe it is? The smoke only came out of the passenger side vents. Also, when it rained hard I’d sometimes find a little water in the passenger-side foot area. Is this all related?
I can’t be for certain but, I thik there’s some dark colored spots on the passenger-side rug where the water sometimes dripped. It could have been there before… but it could be new.
Would I be better off purchasing the replacement parts myself vs. having the auto-mechanics get them? Would that normally save a person money or do mechanics hate that?
IF there was a drip, do you remember what color the fluid was? If it’s Chartreuse it’s the heater core, if it was clear it was water.
Big difference in repair costs. Doing a quick Goggle search it appears that there’s a few problems with your year vehicle and they might have possibly recalled it for repairs. You need to see if the repairs where completed. If not Ford owes you a free repair.
Why not, you know, actually take it in and see what the problem is? Then you can get all sorts of advice on what to do to fix the problem, rather than have people speculate for 5 pages about what the problem might be.
Nothing says you have to have the car fixed at the place that diagnoses the problem (or even fixed at all), so I don’t see the downside to getting it to a mechanic for a checkout ASAP.
I understand that, but it seems pointless to me to have a 3 day discussion about what MIGHT be wrong with the car, when having a mechanic look at it will clear things up. And if someone can’t afford to pay $50 for an estimate, well, then, why bother having this discussion in the first place - find the bus schedule for your area and resign yourself to that alternative.
