AC Blower Broke

......interesting that a lotta Houston Tacomas are losing their fans now. Maybe something in the air?

 

Sorry bud I threw away the paper after I was able to confirm they replaced the actual part.

 

Mine was fixed the next day as well. Although they had to go across town to get the replacement parts.

 

Mine had same issue happen last week down in Tennessee. I live in Mass. came home driving at night so temps were in 80s. Dealer told me blower assembly is on back order 6 to 10 weeks. Photo attached here. End split right open. I tried a couple zip ties to get it to hold. But no luck. Truck has 65,000 on it. It’s a 2016. I drive a lot. Fortunately I bought the extended warranty so it’s covered.

Half way home I did make a discovery. If you disconnect the fan motor wire at the bottom of the fan and then turn the fan switch on any setting the a/c relay will still close. All vehicles are required to have passive ducts that change the air in the cabin when vehicle is moving to prevent co poisoning. So make sure the recirculate setting is off on climate controls and a/c switch is pushed and lit up. Fan switch will need to be on low medium or high. Doesn’t matter. Obviously fan won’t run because it’s disconneced. Turn the heat knob to a/c but not max, as max will trigger recirc mode. I set the vent switch to the dash / floor setting. I made sure all the dash vents were open and pointed at me. With it set this way as I was driving aerodynamically air was pulled through the a/c system into the cabin and cold air came out of the vents. A/c compressor seemed to cycle as it normally would. Faster I drove, more cold air came in. So I took the all highway route home. I found you can increase the vacuum in the cabin and air being pulled through the system by opening only the rear window. Keep side windows up. Air flowing over roof seems to pull more air out of the cabin creating more negative pressure, which pulls air through the system. I was able to drive this way comfortably with side windows up in all but the hottest parts of the day. Driving with windows down on modern highways is deafening.

 

@tacomatrddave the assembly drops out the bottom by removing 3 screws. then slide the fan off the motor, superglue the cracks and hold it in shape with whatever you have to clamp it. Once the glue dries your back in business.

 

I decided it makes sense to replace mine, even though with my wire cerclage it is holding fine. Yesterday I sent an email to the service advisor, provided my VIN and told him my fan had gone tits up. He wrote back and said they are on backorder which may indicate there is a revised/upgraded part coming out but made no reference to any TSBs on this issue. Today surprisingly, he called me and said they got an order in and to bring my truck down. They replaced it in about 30 minutes and I was back on the road again. Being a warranty repair, I was not allowed to keep the old part; supposedly they have to send them back in. (??)
Once home I pulled the cabin filter for a look at it, and it is the same exact part, no fan revision or reinforcement. Additionally on the paperwork it referenced the original part number as the replacement part. So, sadly, this is just a replacement with the same original flawed design part, and should break again. I will likely pull it off and put on a cerclage wire as I did on the broken one to provide structural reinforcement to prevent failure, or sleeve on an appropriately sized bullet cartridge with some epoxy/JB cold weld, at least until I hear of a recall or TSB referencing a new redesigned/reinforced part. I removed my wire job before taking my truck in today for service. Photo of the new fan installed, and of the service paperwork

No, apparently they don't know how to spell "separated" here either.

 

Mine just cracked in Texas, really annoying. They better give me a loaner.

 

Mine went today as well, 102 degree heat here in Austin, my 1997 Land Cruiser has 230 plus thousand miles and the AC blows ice cold, it still keeps going along and will not die.

 

My condenser had a crack in it a week ago and that wasnt a cheap fix since that r-1234yzf if spendy af. Today, i turned up the ac fan to high and heard a new noise. Its kind of a weird hum and only happens on high. I found this thread and went ahead and ordered that part from one of the links earlier. The truck is useless without AC in texas in the summer.

Of and of course it all happened after the warranty ended

 

Hard to say that this is your problem. Could be a leaf down in there if it got past your cabin air filter. It is simple to pull the access panel off the back of your glovebox and pull said filter, take a look at your fan and see if it's damaged. You can also see it directly while you cycle the fan motor thru various speeds and see if you can determine the true source of your noise.
If it is cracked, you can likely remedy this with a small clamp, like used in high pressure fuel lines for fuel injection, etc. They're small, and strong, and can save you money if it's your fan.

 

My recently purchased 2016 blower motor failed on me as well as soon as I pulled it into the drive way. 52k miles. I zip tied it and glued the crap out of it, it's been working fine for the past 3 weeks now. Still waiting on a replacement part

 

I broke my repair job (glue and clamps) by forgetting the blower was set on high when I turned the truck off, turned it on the next day and re-cracked the fan.

 

Mine still at dealer going on week 3. But still putting miles on the loaner 2018 TRD Offroad 4x4.

 

adk_tacoma just mentioned it. You guys ARE turning off the fan before you shut the truck down . . .RIGHT?????

G.

 

I am now. lol

 

Man my truck gets driven by my wife to work and back, she's not going to do a pre-launch checklist on anything. Today they gave us a nice fancy loaner Corolla and said they have had a lot of trucks come in with this issue. Told me that there's 800 fans getting distributed soon but they have a truck on the lot waiting over a month for this part and did not know when it will come in.

 

Brought it in Monday for unrelated stuff and they told me that they were expecting the part in by the end of the week. I requested them to ask the manager about loaners and he came back and said the part came in on Friday and they can have it installed before I leave. Almost seems quieter than before, but I may just be misremembering.


Pro tip, I noticed I had an issue before the blower actually broke because I felt a slight vibration at full blower speed through the truck. I almost brought it in to diagnose, but convinced myself that I was just feeling things and it wasn't relevant... that weekend it blew completely.

 

that craziness! I ordered the part sunday and it shipped Monday and should be here tomorrow. Seems weird some dealers dont have any and others are selling them right off the web.

I looked at it and i can definitely see cracks. Its got to be related to the mega heat these last 3 weeks here in TX. I used to have a garage spot and now i dont so im guessing the heat/cool cycles have made it weak over time.

I am feeling the vibration on high as well. Hopefully it doesnt break before tomorrow!

 

It's more than just a little cumbersome, and mildly annoying to remember to shut off the fan before starting the engine. While I am capable of following a lot of sequential procedure check lists, once in a while I'll simply forget. Honestly, this shouldn't be necessary in a modern vehicle. Also, not being the only person in my family who uses this truck, I can't really expect their actions to compensate for an obviously poor design/poor material selection by a major vehicle manufacturer. Let's be realistic here Toyota. This fan is a piece of shit, it needs to be redesigned. Having had mine break and my '16 still has less than 10K miles on it, I imagine I'm going to be visiting Toyota more than once on this issue. While I am very tempted to pull it out, and do the Clamptite wire cerclage reinforcement on it, I can't be sure that this will be a sure fix, but if Toyota comes up with a TSB and a redesigned part for it, I want one of those redesigned fans in my Truck. I suppose since I still have warranty time on this vehicle, I don't really feel it is up to me to do the repair for Toyota. It's up to them to come up with a remedy.
I wonder if there is a way of finding out how many Gen 3 Toyotas so far have had this failure? We can do polls, but not everyone who owns a Tacoma or similarly equipped Toyota is a forum member. Maybe we all inundate the NHTSA with complaints on this? I suppose the argument could be made that this isn't really a "safety" issue. It's not like a Takata air bag.

 

My blower motor wheel broke this week and I am just at 3k past warranty. You think it's worth calling dealer to let them know even though I plan on fixing myself? Read on here that the Autozone part

$68 PM9297 Blower Motor

PM9297 actually does not fit. Any other suggestions of where to get replacement part since Toyota is just using the same defective part anyways?