Tamora & T350 Heater Flap settings
Discussion
Anyone out there like me been experiencing problems with their ventilation system, where both sets of vents blow air at the same time ie hot from the top, cold from the bottom ?
Mine was doing this and when the car went in for service a few weeks back, it was claimed to have been fixed by cleaning the stepper motor which controls the heater flap. 100 yds up the road turn on the aircon and guess what still not working.
Anyway back to the dealer today to get a new stepper motor.
After some information that Fish had supplied a while back ( thanks fish
) indicating that there were some settings in the computer that could be changed ( by dealer only ) I decided to check out a few of the cars on the dealers forecourt.
The option in question is in the Factory menu ( menu 8 ) and is called "Flap Zero". This effectively sets the logical zero point for the stepper motor. Mine had a value of 0, every working car 16. Changed my to 16 and hey presto everything works. My dealer, including their mechanics, didn't know about this. After a short call to the factory it appears every car is set to 16 now, when it comes out the factory and they indicated that it was fine to play around with this setting until a value is found which works.
I would strongly suggest every owner checks their car as I know for instance that Tam Girl's is at 0 and isn't working correctly, so there may be others.
Why TVR don't document this kind of stuff in the owners manual or at least tell the dealers is beyond me
Frostie
>>> Edited by frostie on Thursday 3rd July 17:50
Mine was doing this and when the car went in for service a few weeks back, it was claimed to have been fixed by cleaning the stepper motor which controls the heater flap. 100 yds up the road turn on the aircon and guess what still not working.
Anyway back to the dealer today to get a new stepper motor.
After some information that Fish had supplied a while back ( thanks fish
) indicating that there were some settings in the computer that could be changed ( by dealer only ) I decided to check out a few of the cars on the dealers forecourt. The option in question is in the Factory menu ( menu 8 ) and is called "Flap Zero". This effectively sets the logical zero point for the stepper motor. Mine had a value of 0, every working car 16. Changed my to 16 and hey presto everything works. My dealer, including their mechanics, didn't know about this. After a short call to the factory it appears every car is set to 16 now, when it comes out the factory and they indicated that it was fine to play around with this setting until a value is found which works.
I would strongly suggest every owner checks their car as I know for instance that Tam Girl's is at 0 and isn't working correctly, so there may be others.
Why TVR don't document this kind of stuff in the owners manual or at least tell the dealers is beyond me
Frostie
>>> Edited by frostie on Thursday 3rd July 17:50
I don't have aircon in my Tamora, but when the heater is on hot, hot air comes out of the top vents but cool air from the bottom vents. I don't have access to the Tamora until tomorrow to look at the settings, but could that explain this strange phenomenon? The factory told me that this was 'normal'. 
Julian
Julian
Yep, interesting system 
Found about the "hot air only from the top, cold air only from the bottom" on the first warm day when the windscreen steamed up (before anyone comments it was the rain that caused this rather than steamy antics inside!). Couldn't understand why I was being blown back into the seat by the blast of cold air but screen didn't clear. Solved by turning heater to hottest setting and sweating it out in the sauna.
Will go check this setting as it might prevent me from having to drive naked in the summer which would be a bad thing for everyone
Thx Frostie
Found about the "hot air only from the top, cold air only from the bottom" on the first warm day when the windscreen steamed up (before anyone comments it was the rain that caused this rather than steamy antics inside!). Couldn't understand why I was being blown back into the seat by the blast of cold air but screen didn't clear. Solved by turning heater to hottest setting and sweating it out in the sauna.
Will go check this setting as it might prevent me from having to drive naked in the summer which would be a bad thing for everyone
Thx Frostie
My air-con has actually got rather over-effective. As well as blowing cold air, cold water has started spitting through the passenger side vent when it has been running for a while! As you can imagine, my girlfriend is most impressed by this...Anyone had this before? I assume something's just come loose somewhere and the condensation isn't draining out properly but I'm not sure where I should look...
Cheers
Cheers
frostie said:
The option in question is in the Factory menu ( menu 8 ) and is called "Flap Zero". This effectively sets the logical zero point for the stepper motor. Mine had a value of 0, every working car 16. Changed my to 16 and hey presto everything works. My dealer, including their mechanics, didn't know about this. After a short call to the factory it appears every car is set to 16 now, when it comes out the factory and they indicated that it was fine to play around with this setting until a value is found which works.
My T350C turned up yesterday and after going out last night in the hot muggy weather I was pretty diappointed at the A/C. Compared to my Audi I have just swapped the T350 for the air con was pitiful, cold air but the fan speed was pretty poor. To make things worse hot air was coming from the top vents and cold from the bottom. So I checked the settings and as you suggest the Flap Zero was set at 0. A quick change to 16 and no hot and cold air together. Still not that impressed with the fan speed though and I was cooking.
I'll see how it goes with the new settings.
Anybody else got a feeble fan output?
T
How unfeelable is the fan? Is it literally nothing? I had the same thing - turned out the connector to the controller box was loose. (Its under the little cover under the glove box on the passenger side). I had to wiggle it each time I started the car to get any fan action until the dealer fixed it properly.
spenny said:
How unfeelable is the fan? Is it literally nothing? I had the same thing - turned out the connector to the controller box was loose. (Its under the little cover under the glove box on the passenger side). I had to wiggle it each time I started the car to get any fan action until the dealer fixed it properly.
The fan works, but it's power/air output is low. For instance on Saturday (yes I know it was very warm) I had to shut all of the lower vents except the driver one to get anything like some decent amount of cool air from the a/c heading in my direction.
I think the a/c is cooling OK, but the fan just isn't sending enough cool air into the car.
To put it simply the a/c simply does not cool the car, unless it was cool to start with (i.e going out into the sunshine from the garage). When the car is hot from being parked in the sun, it simply never gets cool. I have had to resort to opening both the windows when moving at speed to try to cool the car down.
Surely this isn't right? I have had a/c in many cars before this one and it's neverbeen this poor. Even my girlfriends Focus is better than this.... :-(
How is everybody elses a/c, i.e is this common with the T350 and I'll have to put up with it, or is mine behaving badly...
Cheers
Tim
alt said:
You mean the roof was still on! That'll be the problem then!
unfortunately the T350 doesn't come with a tin opener as standard. If it did I might well have used it on Saturday
In all seriousness though, I really think something is up with the air con. Otherwise I'm sure others would have complained before. The only threads I can see are those with the hot air from the top cold from the bottom problem, which mine had until the flap zero setting was changed from 0 to 16.
I took my T350 to Italy during the hottest June for a millions years (or so they said!) The air con worked fine. I parked it in the sun and the A/C cooled it down. I drove around town, on A roads, B roads and it worked fine. The only problem I had was that, on long motorway journeys, it was TOO COLD, even with the fan on the lowest setting! The temperatures I drove around in ranged from 28 to 36.
It seems as though you have a problem. I've heard the A/C output can be adjusted but it's a fine line between getting decent cold air and the compressor cycling on and off too much... or so i was told!
Don't laugh but I've had the windows tinted. It started with limo black for the rear and rear qtr windows so the theives can see what's in the boot. It looked silly so I had a medium tint put on the door windows. I know you might think it's a bit MAX POWER but it really does keep it cooler when parked and when the sun is beating down on a motorway run.
Oh yes and the filth can't see me when I don't wear my seatbelt and use my mobile phone!
It seems as though you have a problem. I've heard the A/C output can be adjusted but it's a fine line between getting decent cold air and the compressor cycling on and off too much... or so i was told!
Don't laugh but I've had the windows tinted. It started with limo black for the rear and rear qtr windows so the theives can see what's in the boot. It looked silly so I had a medium tint put on the door windows. I know you might think it's a bit MAX POWER but it really does keep it cooler when parked and when the sun is beating down on a motorway run.
Oh yes and the filth can't see me when I don't wear my seatbelt and use my mobile phone!
gugne said:
I took my T350 to Italy during the hottest June for a millions years (or so they said!) The air con worked fine. I parked it in the sun and the A/C cooled it down. I drove around town, on A roads, B roads and it worked fine. The only problem I had was that, on long motorway journeys, it was TOO COLD, even with the fan on the lowest setting! The temperatures I drove around in ranged from 28 to 36.
We have just got back from Italy too, and my god was it hot averaged 37 degrees whilst we were there, our aircon behaved the same as yours apart from when we had been driving for most of the day and then sitting in traffic it did start to suffer mainly because the car was totally heatsoaked but generally we had no trouble, just mightily glad that we had air con full stop.
I don't think its right to generalise and make a statement that aircon on a T350c is a waste of two grand as, as you can see above we both have 350's and the aircon works fine, you ought get your dealer to take a look, if it can work on our cars it should work on yours too.
Edited to add, I just re-read your post and noticed you said it had been back to your dealer and looked at. I think you should get them to look again. I know its a ballache but if it can work on some it should work on all. Ours only had a problem because it was in heat approaching 100 degrees farenheit and we had been driving for hours.
>> Edited by mrs fish (moderator) on Monday 14th July 19:32
Edited to add, I just re-read your post and noticed you said it had been back to your dealer and looked at. I think you should get them to look again. I know its a ballache but if it can work on some it should work on all. Ours only had a problem because it was in heat approaching 100 degrees farenheit and we had been driving for hours.
>> Edited by mrs fish (moderator) on Monday 14th July 19:32
2 experiences of air-con this w/e.
Saturday- My T350 left in the sun most of the day at Goodwood and it never really chilled the car on the, amazingly trouble free, journey home. Glad it was fitted, but, not blown-away if you'll excuse the pun.
Sunday- Friends 328 left in the sun most of the day at Donington, instant chill from a couple minutes after start up and stayed that way all the way back to London.
Fan speed does not seem to be an issue. Guess I'll have to get mine looked at...
I have to agree with Mrs Fish, since my aircon cools the car very quickly, and is as effective as the systems on my Golf & Ferrari.
The thing which is crazy is that in usual TVR fashion half of the installed systems don't work, the dealers haven't got a bl**dy clue how to fix them, so the customer suffers. If you call the factory they will deny all knowledge of any kind of issues with the aircon on cars and then six months later there will be some form of upgrade which fixes all the problems encountered by early adopters
TVR quality control - story as usual I'm afraid !
Frostie
>> Edited by frostie on Tuesday 15th July 07:50
The thing which is crazy is that in usual TVR fashion half of the installed systems don't work, the dealers haven't got a bl**dy clue how to fix them, so the customer suffers. If you call the factory they will deny all knowledge of any kind of issues with the aircon on cars and then six months later there will be some form of upgrade which fixes all the problems encountered by early adopters
TVR quality control - story as usual I'm afraid !
Frostie
>> Edited by frostie on Tuesday 15th July 07:50
It would seem that some of us do have a problem with our air con and should get the dealer/factory to have another look. Others seem to have got 'lucky' with theirs. As you say Mark just inconsistancy from the factory.
I'm very happy with the car, but compared to my previous 3 3litre plus cars the air con on my T350C just isn't up to the job.
I would very much like to compare mine to a 'working one' for comparison before gving the dealer a hard time. Anybody with a T350C in the Northwest with working A/C?
Tim
I'm very happy with the car, but compared to my previous 3 3litre plus cars the air con on my T350C just isn't up to the job.
I would very much like to compare mine to a 'working one' for comparison before gving the dealer a hard time. Anybody with a T350C in the Northwest with working A/C?
Tim
tim-j said:
I would very much like to compare mine to a 'working one' for comparison before gving the dealer a hard time. Anybody with a T350C in the Northwest with working A/C?
Tim
Tim, I'm in the Northwest but am a little disappointed with the power of the air-con as well. Mine is going into the dealer for a service next week so I might ask for them to show me some others with air-con fitted to see what the difference is.
I wasn't sure whether or not I had been spoilt by the air-con on my last car or whether there actually was a problem - currently it works fine as long as the car isn't absolutly roasting before hand (i.e. left out in the sun with the weather as it was at the beginning of the week.) under normal circumstances and UK temperatures it appears to be fine (although the compressor is pretty noisy).
Nicksey
Nicksey said:
Tim, I'm in the Northwest but am a little disappointed with the power of the air-con as well. Mine is going into the dealer for a service next week so I might ask for them to show me some others with air-con fitted to see what the difference is.
I wasn't sure whether or not I had been spoilt by the air-con on my last car or whether there actually was a problem - currently it works fine as long as the car isn't absolutly roasting before hand (i.e. left out in the sun with the weather as it was at the beginning of the week.) under normal circumstances and UK temperatures it appears to be fine (although the compressor is pretty noisy).
Nicksey
I agree I too may have been spoilt by other cars systems. Also I agree that it isn't that bad when the car isn't hot, but just useless if it is. However from the comments from some of the others regarding the TVR system great at cooling a car even in the real hot conditions, then I guess something is up. I'm waiting on a car from Christopher Neil now to book my car in for it's 1K service (not bad considering I've only had the car 10 days!) so I'll see what they have to say about matters.
Tim
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