Hi there,
Has anyone experience cleaning the hvac ducts and associated bits in the XF?
The other day, while driving with the A/C on, I had pieces of black sticking bits fly out of the centre dash air outlets.
I'm thinking a clean may be required.
What is the best way into the dash ducts?
Peter

 

Sounds like the foam insulation and gaskets are degrading, cleaning may remove more material, check out the black material first. Woody

 

Has anyone any tips for access into the ducts?
Pulling the centre air outlets off?
Or behind the glove box ?
Any suggestions?
thanks
Peter

 

Only two places I know of is removing the blower motor/cabin filter (under the panel below the glove box) and removing the cowl and cleaning out the debris (making sure you get the drains clear as well below the cowling). I suppose you could remove the vent covers somehow but I have never seen anything in mine to justify doing that. You might have just had the filter foam (tear loose from the perimeter of the cabin air filter and blowing downwind to the vents). Hope you find the source!


.

 

Agreed, I would start with replacing the cabin filter. It is the easiest and all kinds of crap gets pulled into that duct and into the fan.

 

OK, bit the bullet and pulled the air conditioning apart up under the dash on the passenger side.
Pulled the pollen air filter out, pulled the A/C fan motor out, and opened up the side hatch on end of the dash ( faces door)
The pollen filter was in reasonable condition.
The cover under the fan had a layer of leaf debris on it.
Pulled the fan out.
Looking through the side hatch I could see where the problem was; above the fan air intake there is a flap which seperates the outside air from the interior. This flap is actuated via linkage. The flap has a thin black foam coating on both sides of the flap.
Its this foam which was peeling off and coming out the air ducts.
So I stripped off the foam.
Cleaned the rest and reassemble.

View through the side hatch

Screw driver holding hatch open

View upwards through the fan housing with the flap valve in the centre. Fan motor removed.




Fan cover

Leaf litter from inside the fan housing

 

Nice job with all the pictures. Thanks for sharing the information.