I’ll skip most of the Honda dealer service department woes and cut to the chase. . .
Twice now mice have taken up residence in the air circulation system of my Insight. They have wound up dead in the cabin air blower. Should this happen to you, it will become evident because you will hear a blower speed dependent ticking sound behind the glove box and your wife/girlfriend/partner/significant other/whatever will refuse to ride in the car anymore as the smell will be less than optimum.
The first time it cost me $125. The second time I decided I should explore the necessary demousing procedure myself. Low and behold it is a simple three screw procedure to remove and clean out the blower, much easier than replacing the cabin air filter (which you might also want to do for good measure)
For anyone else who may find themselves in need of demousing or simply cleaning out something stuck in the blower here’s the details:
The blower sits in a white plastic housing behind the glove box to the right of the filter housing. It can be accessed without removing the glove box or center dash panel.
If you stick your head where your passengers usually stick their feet, and then twist over on your back and look up, the round black blower unit connected by three yellow screws to the white housing should be very evident. A stubby slotted screwdriver works great to pop those 3 little puppies out and you can easily unplug the 2 blue wires that power the blower. The unit will drop out easily for demousing. Unit replacement requires no special talents beyond the aforementioned physical dexterity.
I can’t speak highly enough about figgy’s website: http://insight.fungiart.com/pollenfilterhowto.html
If you go to the fifth picture (including the one of the tools) at his site (the one that says “filter box” and “cut here”) you can clearly see the blower housing to the right of the filter box. It is the large white thing. I mention this simply as a reference, you do not need to remove the glove box to remove and clean the blower.
Twice now mice have taken up residence in the air circulation system of my Insight. They have wound up dead in the cabin air blower. Should this happen to you, it will become evident because you will hear a blower speed dependent ticking sound behind the glove box and your wife/girlfriend/partner/significant other/whatever will refuse to ride in the car anymore as the smell will be less than optimum.
The first time it cost me $125. The second time I decided I should explore the necessary demousing procedure myself. Low and behold it is a simple three screw procedure to remove and clean out the blower, much easier than replacing the cabin air filter (which you might also want to do for good measure)
For anyone else who may find themselves in need of demousing or simply cleaning out something stuck in the blower here’s the details:
The blower sits in a white plastic housing behind the glove box to the right of the filter housing. It can be accessed without removing the glove box or center dash panel.
If you stick your head where your passengers usually stick their feet, and then twist over on your back and look up, the round black blower unit connected by three yellow screws to the white housing should be very evident. A stubby slotted screwdriver works great to pop those 3 little puppies out and you can easily unplug the 2 blue wires that power the blower. The unit will drop out easily for demousing. Unit replacement requires no special talents beyond the aforementioned physical dexterity.
I can’t speak highly enough about figgy’s website: http://insight.fungiart.com/pollenfilterhowto.html
If you go to the fifth picture (including the one of the tools) at his site (the one that says “filter box” and “cut here”) you can clearly see the blower housing to the right of the filter box. It is the large white thing. I mention this simply as a reference, you do not need to remove the glove box to remove and clean the blower.
