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1998 Deville Blower motor problems/battery drain.

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12K views 29 replies 8 participants last post by  Moonlight12  
#1 ·
Alright before I go into details, the speedometer screen in this car does not work so I have not been able to check for codes. With that being said here is what I'm dealing with.: The car is a 1998 Deville it has about 130,000 miles on it. This car was given to me as a gift. The alternator was bad and the AC did not blow cold air. I replaced the alternator and battery and found that refrigerant was just low. All seemed well..... until I noticed the battery dead about a week after the AC had been filled. Jumped the car and checked the alternator and battery voltage and all checked out. The car does not getting driven being a non primary vehicle. Next, I needed to move the car a few days later and found that the battery had died again. Started researching what could possibly be draining the battery and went through every fuse with no avail. Today I realized that the AC blower motor barely works (no mater the fan speed setting) sometimes it blows hard other times just barely enough to force air through the vents. Then, I realized that the blower motor does the exact same intermittent blowing when the car is off. Turning the air off before shutting down the car and changing out of AUTO mode seems to have no effect either. It turns on and off enough to kill the new battery overnight sometimes. I pulled the 50amp AC FAN fuse and it still runs. I have resorted to disconnecting the battery in fear of it draining anymore. I'm at a loss here. Not only does the AC barely work but the battery gets drained. Is there anything that might be causing this besides the blower motor itself? (Something controlling the afterglow?) is the motor bad all of the sudden? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
P.S. extremely limited on tools but have plenty of ability.
 
#8 ·
Having literally changed my blower 2 weeks ago I can tell you the 4 Seasons blower sucks to put in. Had to take the motor apart and reassemble in place. The OEM is much easier to replace, I'd personally get a used for the amount of trouble it was. If just need the control head it'll be even easier than taking motor and squirrel cage out.
The IPC display has gone out and you can swap a known good display(only display not the whole IPC) without needing to reprogram the IPC. No hard to take apart, hard part getting it out as dash has to come out.
 
#12 ·
I really appreciate all the input here! I am going to the junkyard first thing tomorrow. I am going to try my luck with just replacing the control head piece, as I am fairly certain that is all that is bad. Figure it's worth a shot at the yard and they list having 4 devilles from 1994-1999 in the yard right now. It'll be good practice removing the parts from a car there too. I also need a new power antenna so I'll be checking for that too!
 
#11 ·
What rodknock said. Most yards will let you plug it in to make sure it works. Try to find the cleanest looking blower motor among the wrecks. I had to pull 3 before I found a good one. First one I removed locked up while spinning by hand. Second one started popping as soon as I powered it on. I ended up finding a really clean deville that probably popped a hg with low miles. Everything but the engine had been stripped clean, but the blower motor and a brand new purge solenoid that I needed was still there.
 
#16 ·
I also own a '98 DeVille, and several times now have come back to the car a little while after driving it somewhere and found what sounds like a blower motor under the windshield wiper area to be running on it's own with car off, no keys in the ignition... what the heck? I always try to make sure I turn the A/C OFF before I get out of the car, and that seems to help, but did it again today. Is this the same thing that is happening to yours Zachary? Sorry, what is the "IPC Display" - Jon
 
#17 ·
In my car the blower motor stopped working randomly, the air would sometimes blow sometimes not but a whisper. That is also when it started staying on overnight and killing the battery. Waiting for the a new blower motor to arrive in the mail. Ran out of the cars to pull from in the junkyard after 3 tries
 
#18 ·
DIC = Driver Information Center or IPC = Instrument Panel Cluster is politically correct millennial speak for "instrument panel".

For correct terminology, use the "Acronyms" sticky on this Deville forum home page.

Some of these cars came from the dealership (new) with HVAC Afterblow enabled. It's a resettable feature (dealership) that runs the HVAC blower for a while after shutdown to dry out the ducting, this preventing mold and mildew. The blower should come on after you get out of the car and run for several minutes, then stop.
 
#20 ·
Alright, here is where I'm at now. I just got the four seasons motor in the mail. The car was already apart so I plugged it in and turn the key to turn the air on and the motor is not spinning at all. I also have one of the motors from the junkyard and plugged it in, the used motor turned on for a few seconds and then shut off. Neither one is functioning properly. Is there anything I can check. The plug to the motor is showing 12v too.
 
#21 ·
There is a multiple ground point outside the passenger right foot carpeted kick panel - fender inner panel. A bunch of dash grounds collect there and go into a black box that is studded to body metal. Clean the whole mess and stud. Cross your fingers. Some members have even soldered individual ring terminals to the ground wires and eliminated the collector box.
 
#27 ·
I have a 97 Deville with a blower motor that stops at random times. could the problem be the module with the buttons? I have this left over from my ipc replacement . could these go bad? this module has a circuit board on it, so was thinking it is this?


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the problem COULD be caused by several things -
worn/loose plug - worn/loose ground - worn out motor - etc -
the programmer is probably the LEAST likely cause -