My climate control problems mostly went away with the new alternator, so most of them seemed to have been voltage related (voltage got below 12V). But now, every once in a while, the blower motor abruptly stops. Is that the FSR causing that?
I'm not sure that's your problem. When ours went bad it would keep the fan running, even with the car off/key out. Hopefully someone else will chime in with more experience.
Same for me with FSR on my 2001 540i 6spd, in that my cabin fan would turn on and run down the battery even with the key out and car locked. However on my wife's 2002 330i, the FSR made the fan cut out sometimes....sometimes not. Then sometimes when the fan worked, the fan speed control buttons would not work. Mostly the latter was the issue. Keep us up to date on your progress. cheers !!
All of what people here have described are failure modes of the FSR. It is not very difficult orexpensive to replace anyway.
I have a new FSR and will be installing as soon as I get a chance. Looks like my original FSR is not totally gone, but why tempt fate?
Would love to hear how it goes for you. Changed out my FSR for similar reasons and 'ghost' turn on while parked, leaving me with a dead battery. It worked great afterward. No problems to date, over 2 yrs. Keep us posted !!!
The FSR in my car was DEFINITELY bad... in fact it invited the Prince of Darkness for one more surprise visit. I had to charge up the battery overnight (with the negative cable disconnected). As I was pulling out the old FSR I could feel the heater blower fan blowing air on me. *The key was not in the ignition while I was doing this.* The old FSR was warm, even though the battery had only been connected for 15 minutes. Took a while to get the right part. The first part I got from BMA (made by Myele in China) did not work properly (heater blower went to full blast as soon as it was plugged in). Another part from Behr did not match. The correct part number was made by Valeo and had "BMW" written on the part number decal. Just installed it yesterday. Think I'm OK now... just knocked on wood. Will let you guys know how it goes. TIP: If the FSR kills your battery, and you don't have a replacement FSR, pull the old one out and charge your battery up. Better to have a car that starts and has no blower fan, than one that has no blower fan and is a lovely non-starting lawn sculpture.
It's easier to pull the fuse that powers the fan - this way your battery won't run down. It's also a good idea to do this while you're replacing the FSR, so you don't get shocked or blow something else.
I tried to find that fuse and could not. According to my insert, the "Heater blower" fuse is #76 (40A). It seems that fuses #75 and 76 are located away from the main fuse block that holds fuses #1 through #45 in the glove compartment.
