I really thought I was almost ready to put the old girl (seen above in better times a few years ago) out to pasture, or at least the very least, pass her on to my teenage drivers. In the past couple of years, I’ve maybe driven my car a thousand miles each year, and faithfully changed the oil and filter each spring. Every now and again the tires get rotated. But the Chinese Virus seems to have had other plans, and I suddenly find myself driving rather a lot again. Surprise! If I’m going to be spending more time driving again, then I should probably look to some of the relatively inexpensive quality of life fixes that I can do on the vehicle.
Which was how, on a very hot June evening, I found myself laying in the passenger seat well, stomach on the door sill, knees on the concrete, head contorted at a ninety-degree angle, attempting to remove a small metric screw with a newly purchased box wrench.
Maybe I should back up a second. One of the longest running issues with my Saturn has been the thermostat fan controls. I don’t remember when it started, but within a few years of our receiving the car, I lost the second of four fan speeds. Then number three went, eventually followed by number one, leaving the only heat options being full blast or none at all. Again, given how little I drove the vehicle, that was fine. But then Tam mentioned on her Koobeaf page that she was having a similar issue with her Mustang, and one of her helpful commentators noted that this was a pretty common issue caused by the blower resistor dying. “Hmm, I thought, could that be my problem too?”
Yes. Yes it could be, and thanks to this helpful guide from YouTube, I figured it couldn’t be that difficult. I mean, the video’s only a minute and a half. How long can it take, really?
Now either there was a change between the 2002 and 2004 models that made for more room behind that resistor, or the dude in the video has really small hands, because I sure couldn’t get behind that darn thing to undo the plug while the resistor component itself was still in position. This led to the main problem of the evening, wherein I realized that my #8 Metric socket didn’t have enough room to hit the screw, and that my mechanic neighbor wasn’t home for me to go beg a metric wrench from.
Cue a Sunday trip to the local hardware store. Unfortunately, the place with the friendly hardware folks closed fifteen minutes before I arrived, so I had to go to Lowe’s instead. My wallet some amount lighter (and having learned that there’s currently a coin shortage going around the country), I arrived home with a nice set of seven metric Craftsman wrenches.
After that, aside from the relatively uncomfortable position required to reach a component positioned at the very back of the passenger footwell, it was a fairly simple job to disconnect the old resistor, unplug the cables, install the new part, and plug the four-pin connector back in.
Fire up the vehicle and Viola! Four fan speeds! Next on the list, maybe I’ll get the air conditioner serviced so that I actually have cold air again!