Center dash vents stopped working/ blowing
 

Searched every which way I could and didn't see anything...

At some point in the last year, my center dash vents just quit blowing. 2013 FRS, so just the big knob controls. I've tried twisting the "direction" knob back and forth, and it does redirect air to the other appropriate locations.

Has anyone seen this? I assume there's a connecting armature or something that has disconnected, but I thought I'd get the hive-mind opinion before I tried digging into the dash.

You're going to think I'm making fun of you but I have to ask, because skipping the basic, obvious stuff is the best way to waste effort...

The two wheels between the vents have their lines pointing UP, right?

If we don't ever hear back from @Dake - that means you hit on it - :D

Ha YES! I'm the last person to not remind to try the simple answers first, but in this case that is something I've double and triple checked.:D

Well, OK - we figured all along you had checked that - we were just trying to kick up our post counts - :D

Now, do the little wheels actually tilt the flaps?

If they do, I reckon you will need to burrow deeper into the dash to figure out where the air went to.

:iono:

Yeah, everything seems to move. I'll have to see what I can come up with. At least it's blowing out of everywhere else so the cabin cools.

On my old Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V 2002, isolating stuff (like foam) start to get out of the vents. After a while the dash (up) and floor (down) control were blocked. And then some day later, I was unable to move the vents and they were blocked in position. It was a known issue corrected under waranty.

I'm not aware of any problem like this on the twins. At leats the sides are still working... Get rid of the center vents and put some nice gauges! ;)

I had to do it, I've had people pay to bring their car to a shop for little vent flaps like that ;)

When you move the mode control, you've said other positions, heater and defrost, work but does air ever come out of the two round vents on the ends of the dash?

I'm assuming our cars have one of these as well

https://youtu.be/8xPEV2N_TNo?t=95

Op says he has the mechanical controls, so it's cable driven.

It's not impossible that he has a cable issue, and the dash vents being at one extreme end of the dial, the tension can't quite make it go, but it's hard to determine without actually having fingers on the dial to feel the mechanism.

Yeah - the end vents still work, and there doesn't appear to be a change in tension or feel as I rotate the knob. Well, once things (ironically) cool down a bit where I won't die working in the garage, I'll dig into it some more.

So... because simply living life as myself isn't humiliating enough, I thought I should revisit this and hey whaddaya know? I'm a complete idiot.

My only excuse (and it's a lame one) is that I have my magnetic phone clip in the passenger side center vent, so most of the time while driving, those wheels are blocked. I would have sworn I'd checked that, but here we are! At least I didn't take it to the dealer.

Good news is, I don't think we have a new issue to worry about for aging FRSes. :bonk:

Feel free to close the thread - or sticky it as a shining example of "check the simplest things first (and if you think you have - check them again)."

Superb :clap:

Those basics man, they'll get ya everytime.

I have a story of an old man traumatizing tech support for 3 hours on the phone because the support guy or gal forgot to start with "unplug it and plug it back in again".