Weak air out of side and floor vents

[feetwet]

I have had my '06 XLT for about 4 months now and the heat or cooling only blows strong out of the center vents on the console.. Air blows very weak out of the round driver and pax side vents... also weak out of the front foot and rear center vents... Is this normal.. or should I have it looked at under my warranty?

 

[edwx]

I can relate. I have the same thing with my '06 XLS. I just figured it was designed that way. I get air out of the side vents but it's definitely not like the '03 XLS I had. That really cranked out of the sides and middle. It'll be interesting to see what kind of feedback this thread gets.

 

[dothedeww]

I can relate. I have the same thing with my '06 XLS. I just figured it was designed that way. I get air out of the side vents but it's definitely not like the '03 XLS I had. That really cranked out of the sides and middle. It'll be interesting to see what kind of feedback this thread gets.

same exact thing in my 06xlt...very weak out of outside vents but inner vents are strong as can be.

 

[Elessar65]

my 98 is like that. The side vents are way weak, but then center is almost hot enough to burn me with it on full blast.

 

[feetwet]

Took me Ex into the dealer... they checked it and said there are not problems. They also compared the output to another Explorer and said it had the same level of vent output... I guess the ventilation with the standard XLT single-zone system just isn't that great.

 

[edwx]

I noticed that with fan on high, if I back off the thermostat from max heat (5 o'clock) to moderate heat (about 3 o'clock position,) the volume of air from the side vents increases significantly. It doesn't help me much though because the air is not as warm, and I rather have the hotter air.

 

[BrianDye]

I have 4 vehicles to compare.

1992 Eddie Explorer- Heat blows out hot enough to burn you from ALL vents, VERY hard, EVEN on floor/dash.

1995 Explorer (4dr)- Heat barely blew out hot, unless engine was above 2k RPMs, blew out warmest in the center vents, both side vents blew out very little, and it was VERY cold

2001 Taurus SES- Heat was only hot after a good 20-25 minutes of driving, and would only stay hot if engine was at 1800 RPMs or higher, in general blew out evenly, but hotter in the center vents

1995 Explorer Sport- Heat blows out decently hot, hot enough for me not to complain, blows out HARD as hell in the center passenger side vent, but barely any at all on either side vents, and barely comes out lukewarm


I would pay someone a thousand dollars to be able to swap everything that deals with the heat and AC on my 92, to my new 95 Sport, the 92 blows out HOT HOT HOT after about 5 minutes of idling, from a 5 degree cold morning, and stays hot weather im idling for 30 minutes or going 90, comes out evenly HARD through all vents, and evenly hot through all vents!

 

[jupiterak]

I agree, the floor vents suck on my 06.

 

[JC22312]

2010 Floor Vents Suck Too

Same problem as last several years ,the floor level vents don't move much air. Where does all that air go that is not coming out the dash vents?

 

[Mike10]

I have the same problem on my 07.

I spoke with a friend of a friend who is a tech at a Ford dealer who told me that this is a common complaint.

Apparently the airflow is poor on the front floor vents because there are two other hidden vents (one on each side) robbing power from them. The additional blow air up under the dash, just where you don't need it.

He told me that he has heard of people blocking off the redundent vents, which increased the flow to the floor vents considerably.

I havent seen a scematic, but was told that you need to remove the console to acess the extra vents.

I was planning on trying it last fall before it got cold, but wanted to see a scematic first - unfortunately I wasn't able to find one.

 

[edwx]

It's not the weak floor vents that bother me. As it is, once the vehicle is warmed up, they blow hot air right on my leg and I have to use the cruise so I can get my leg out of the way and not get burned. The older X's used to blow the the air out above the feet. Why they changed it to blow on to ones leg from 3" away, I'll never know. My issue is with the weak heat from the side vents.

 

[michael loibl]

edwx...I had same gain in airflow by backing off the temperature last winter.turned out i had consideable debris on the face of the heater core causing restriction like a dirty air filter. some loss of flow is to be expected, but it may be worth looking into.

About burning the leg... Much like a home or a restaurant with my parents, HVAC ideally works without feeling the direct output of the system but rather just the resulting comfortable air. My two other cars do a much better job of dissipating the heat so I can have 70 degree interior rather than 90 degree right calf, 50 degree left calf, 60 degree left arm, etc. I would love to see an "ALL" mode on vent selector so a small amount of air could simulateously come from defroster, dash, and floor.

 

[edwx]

I'm probably opening a can of worms with this question, and I 'm sure there is a lot of good threads and posts on this subject which I will research later, but in the mean time, is the face of the heater core fairly easy to access to check for cleaning?