2013 Heater Blower Resistor and Connector

Hi,

so first up thank you to you all! After trawling this forum I managed to learn about the issue with the resistor pack in these cars and the blower issue it causes (nothing works or full on / one speed).

I recently bought this car knowing that the internal blower wasn't working. It's basically dead as the proverbial Dodo! This comes with the aircon but the sort with the three manual dials/knobs (not digital). When the dial that adjusts fan speed is turned on and raked through the speed settings it does... nothing, nada, zilch!

First I check the fuses (engine bay and glove box) and all is good, so moved on to check the 'holy grail' heater blower resistor pack - and voila, judging by the melted connector (port A3) and the corresponding connector being all but fecked, there is certainly an issue!

As you'll see (from the photos) the resistors A3 port is fried (so i'm guessing the resistor is done). This does not look good but the connector is worse, it looks like it went on a full on meltdown. The wiring looks ok, although near the connector end the black and red wires were stuck together 'very' slightly (must have been caused by the heat) but the plastic shielding is fully intact and not melted and not exposing any bare wires.

What I'm after is a bit of advice from those more knowledgeable about this specific issue and car electrics?

As a minimum I'll need to order the resistor and corresponding connector. I have found the correct resistor available from the likes of autodoc for £20 inc postage but can't seem to find the connector? Any ideas what the part number is and where I could buy one... which leads me on to...

Given the state of the connector should I try to get a connector with associated wiring? The wiring actually looks ok. Could I just detach the current wiring from the melted connector and re-attach to a good connector? is this a bad idea?

And finally given how melted the the A3 port and connector are could there be something more nefarious going on?! I really don't want to wire in a new resistor and have the thing start smoking because of a short somewhere... I suppose what I'm asking is, if this has happened to you did it look this bad and was it just the resistor pack and connector up the duff?

I'm pretty handy mechanically but electrics aren't my thing. If all else fails and I bottle it, If I got the parts and took it to an auto electrician
what would I be looking to have the job done? I realise this has fairly wide scope!

All advise is very very welcome, thanks in advance

Ade

Hi

Your car bio says it's a 2013 but the topic title says 2006 (A51)

Which one is it?

so sorry my brain is fried, a bit like the resistor and connector

The car is 2013 as per bio. I have absolutely no idea why I plucked 2006 out of the air.

'2013 63 Plate - Citroen C3 (A510 5 Door Saloon 12 I VTi (EB2) Manual gearbox 5 DAM'... is what I've been told?

ZippyDooDaa wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:15 am so sorry my brain is fried, a bit like the resistor and connector

The car is 2013 as per bio. I have absolutely no idea why I plucked 2006 out of the air.

'2013 63 Plate - Citroen C3 (A510 5 Door Saloon 12 I VTi (EB2) Manual gearbox 5 DAM'... is what I've been told?

From the pictures and the year, I would say yours is the 6441.CT resistor (on eBay).

As for the loom/plug, it seems to be less easy to find. I will have an look for that for you.

I've been in contact with Citroen and their service department where very forthcoming sent through the schematic of the wiring harness. They said they can't supply the connector without the rest of the harness - I'd rather not replace the whole harness if possible ...

I'm not sure what the part number is on this image so any advice is most welcome.

I don't really want to buy from Citroen as they want £54.88 + vat for the harness!

If anyone knows where I could get either the connector of harness I be very grateful

The part number of the harness on the diagram that Citroen sent you is 6436.H3

As you found out the plug with its tails is an aftermarket part as Citroen will only supply the loom as a complete part.


The plug with its tails for the 6441.CT blower resistor is proving difficult to source as it's not currently a popular aftermarket part.


You could always buy the complete loom from Citroen and cut off only what you need to repair yours. This would save having to remove and refit what is probably a perfectly good loom on the car.

Thanks for the info. Re: Citroen loom.. they want £54.88 + VAT for the part which is stupendously expensive for what it is and especially as I may only need a £1 connector.

I'm thinking I may either have to throw it out there to the scrapers to see if the have anything in stock or approach a local auto electric shop to see if they can do it/ have a connector that matches... although I'd imagine they'd just buy the harness from Citroen and charge it back to me

Can't believe that its so difficult to find this type of connector! There seems to be plenty of third party looms but not in this format.

Thanks again

I found these at Aliexpress.
You'll need to study the plug to see if its suitable (should be). Its available in grey or black.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3300256 ... 0886%22%7D

A little bit of electronics maths for you.
The formula for electrical power is current squared times the resistance.
So the current is what is drawn by the heater fan and resistance is that of the contacts of the plug.
The heater fan fuse is rated at 40 amps! So lets be conservative and say its running at 10 amps.
Lets say there is 1 Ohm resistance across the contacts (just to make the maths simple).
So that's 10 squared (100) times 1. 100 Watts of energy! A cheap soldering iron is rated at 25 Watts and that will melt plastic quite easily!! Get it now?
It's very important with high current circuits to keep resistances of contacts to a minimum, now you know why.
Why is this damage (the heater fan melting connectors) so prevalent? Poor engineering!! How many variants of C3 have they had this problem on and they still have not fixed it?
Now you know why, as a technician, engineers are my mortal enemy!! LOL!

You can check the cabin pollen filter and see if its blocked. If you park under trees, dross can get into the filter and block it. This causes the heater fan to struggle and draw more current than usual. You would be better off removing the filter all together rather than leaving it in there, blocked!

Brilliant! Thank you all so much for your help.

I’m going to go ahead and order the resistor from eBay or AUTODOC., and connector from AliExpress (hopefully it will fit - looks like it should do). Just out of interest what search terms did you use to find the connector?

I’ll post back whenever the parts have arrived and fitted fingers crossed .

ZippyDooDaa wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:48 am Just out of interest what search terms did you use to find the connector?

Believe it or not but most of the time those bloody electrical connectors are only used for one thing! In this case its only used for the fan resistor. But some times you have to trawl...and trawl...and trawl to find stuff. I tried Peugeot Citroen blower fan resistor and scrolled through the results.

While you are at Aliexpress, If you are going to DIY, I would recommend getting some splices.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33011888025.html
I would get the blue splices.
You have a choice, cut all the wires off the old connector and splice the wires to the new one, or pull the old and new connectors apart and transplant the old wires and contacts. Pulling the connectors apart can be tricky but not impossible. If you decide on the latter, it would probably be best to cut and splice the new black wire and contact. The old one will be damaged and you run the risk of it happening again. Sorry, but it's most likely to happen again anyway.

ZippyDooDaa wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:48 am I’ll post back whenever the parts have arrived and fitted fingers crossed .

Please do. It's the only way we know we are doing the right thing.