Hello and question

[Pastymuncher 0]

Hello all.

 

Thought it was about time I said hello as I've been reading the forum for a month or so now and very entertaining/useful its been too. I was going to wait until I had some pics of the car to put up, but the weather's been so crap lately it never stays clean. It's a green Storm, so you all know what it looks like anyway.

 

And now the question - the first owner of my C had air con fitted when he got the car. Its an Alpinair system rather than the Daviair one. It has two switches, on/off and max/recirc. The original switches put in by Alpinair were generic push buttons sunk into the plastic gearstick surround. Some time ago I sourced the necessary cigarette lighter trim and VW aircon switch (£70:shock:). The switch had some lugs sticking out of the top which evidently fit into slots on the underside of the HVAC unit resulting in the two buttons sticking out over the cigarette lighter. However, my HVAC didn't appear to have any slots in the right place (and so I made my own bracket out of a piece of al sheet and self-adhesive pads). The stealer said this was because aircon was only factory fitted in the US, so the switch will only slot into the underside of RHD HVAC units - LHD units lack the necessary slots. I just wondered if this is right - do any other aircon owners have the original look VW aircon switch fitted in their dash? When VAG dealers had Daviair ones fitted, where were the switches put?

 

Oh, and my system resulted in the loss of the option to have airflow to the footwells. Not that I would use it often anyway, but is this common?

 

All info gratefully recieved.

 

David

[VR6 0]

I don't personally have aircon but IIRC the buttons are usually mounted under (above?) the ABS light (or in that general area anyway!).

[vr6storm 0]

right here's a pic of what i believe to be a factory-equipped A/C US-spec Corrado......the reason i think this is factory is the "legend" on the HVAC panel looks to be using a VW-style font......and also i would imagine that all US-spec ones had A/C fitted as standard.....so it was either done at Karmann or the US importers

 

though also if you have the Corrado owners manual i'm pretty sure it shows you the factory A/C controls

[Leavon 0]

I have 2 round buttons marked norm and max located under the fog light and screen demister buttons. Same style buttons, don't know what should go there normally? I think the fitters had to bodge a bracket together though cause they don't sit perfectly if you really examine them.

[Pastymuncher 0]

Thanks for your replies chaps. My set up looks identical to your photo Rodders, save for the fact that I didn't bother changing the HVAC control trim plate, so mine does not say "AIRconditioned" above the buttons. Mine is also obviously RHD and I think the HVAC unit is configured differently from LHD. In fact I think I could not change the HVAC control trim plate because the graphics for the switches would be wrong as the fan speed control and vent control are switched over for a LHD and VW don't offer a RHD version with "AIRconditioned" written on it.

 

My a/c switch is held in place by a home-made bracket which is attached to the top of the cigarette lighter. It looks exactly as in the photo above but can move about sometimes if I push it too hard, so if I can fix it to where its supposed to be, if that's possible on a LHD car, that would be good.

 

Leavon - my car has blanking plates for the "switches" under the fogs/demister buttons, so I'm not sure anything is supposed to go there normally. The fact that UK cars have their a/c switches anywhere but where the US cars have them makes me think there is a LDH/RHD difference to the HVAC unit which makes RHD fitting there difficult.

 

David

[dazzyvr6 0]

Leavon - my car has blanking plates for the "switches" under the fogs/demister buttons, so I'm not sure anything is supposed to go there normally. The fact that UK cars have their a/c switches anywhere but where the US cars have them makes me think there is a LDH/RHD difference to the HVAC unit which makes RHD fitting there difficult.

i think those blanking buttons are where the heated seat controld live

[Pastymuncher 0]

Dazzyvr6 - I've got heated seats and while the controls are up in that area of the dash, they're actually below the set of buttons for the fogs/demister, which still have blanking plates. From memory I think that there are 6 "switches" in two columns of 3. I've got 2 for fogs, 1 demister and hence 3 blanks. The thumbwheels for the heated seats are below.

 

David