2015 Nissan Rogue S No heat on driver's side.

 2015 Nissan Rogue S

No heat on driver's side.

Sometimes problems like this are super expensive and require removing the dash to fix them. This time we didn't even have to buy any parts. Weird. 

My first step in diagnosing the problem was to check the blend door actuator. Here's how I got to it. 

I removed the two bolts holding the fuel door lever and hood release lever.

  

I removed the fuse panel cover (open driver's side door to access). 

 

 

I pulled off the trim panel next to the gas pedal.  

These pull straight out.

I removed the shin panel by pulling straight out.

 

There were two screws holding in this duct. They were awkward to remove. A 90 degree screwdriver was necessary.

 

There was a slot on top that was holding this duct in. 

Once that duct was removed, I could access the blend door actuator. Getting this duct back in is much harder than taking it out. You may need to be a yoga expert to accomplish this task.

 

Now that everything is out of the way, you can see where the driver's side blend door actuator is located. It was held in by two screws.

After removing it, I saw that it had some plastic flakes on it, indicating that it was stripping out.  

 

The socket it fits into looked similar. 

I used an 8mm Allen socket to rotate the door by hand. It seemed like there were no obstructions.

With the car on, heater set to high, the door would stay in the hot position by itself. The actuator moved fine, and with it set in the hot position and the door in the hot position, I put the actuator back in place. 

It seems fine now. The temperature control moves the actuator and the door opens and closes and the driver's side temperature control works now.

I wonder if the last guy installed the blend door actuator in the wrong position. 

The entire job took about three hours. With this info, you probably could do it faster.

Comeback!

It worked for a couple days then stayed cold again. So I installed a shrink tube sleeve on the motor shaft to take up some slack. Now it goes hot and cold. Hopefully it stays that way. If not, then I'll have to figure out something else. 

Here's a picture of the driver's side hot/cold blend door actuator part number in case we need it later.

Broke Again!

My questions to Nissan are

"Why do you force the actuator to move beyond the limits of the door?"

"Why do you make the actuator torque strong enough to strip the plastic socket?"