grosss

Yup, I got a copy of the wiring schematic for the system, and noticed there were only two places that there could have been a connection break that would produce those symptoms, and that spot right there was one of the two.

I figured it out!!! For any of you who have this issue (and just ignore it) I've got a fix for you! I hope this helps you out Smitty.. The problem is inside of the switch itself, it appears one of the circuit board contact areas gets filled in with dirt or corroded and breaks contact. The problem area is right before the circuit connects to the down and right buttons, and therefore doesn't affect the other two. Take a look at the picture below. You'll have to take out the switch from the door, it's held in with small little protrusions that make it a pain to remove. Use a small flat head screwdriver and take your time. Once you have the switch out, you'll have to do the same painstaking task to open up the switch, I've provided a picture of what it should look like when you put it back together, because mine popped apart on me the first time I took it apart. The two small holes in the circuit board that are circled in RED are the culprits, use a small fine pointed tool like the one pictured to poke through and clean out the holes, then put it all back together.

Well it's a 2001 Acura EL (similar to Civic) and no I guess I never really looked for a difference in feel in the winter, but it explicitly says in the owners manual that the A/C button is activated whenever you turn the dial to defrost.. on the older model EL's (2000 and below) it did the same, but you could deactivate the function by holding a certain button sequence while turning the knob, can't do it on mine. On the other hand I haven't driven the car much when it's below freezing outside and snowy lately since that's what the truck is for now :-D.

Do you mean it will not let you turn on the A/C button on the dash, or the fact that you can't cool the air coming in (I understand the reasoning behind having the A/C system on during the winter for drying the moisture, my car actually wont activate the defrosters without turning on the A/C as well) Thermodynamically speaking however, air conditioning units become less efficient the colder it is outside because there is a much smaller temperature gradient which has a huge effect on the efficiency. For example to cool your refrigerator in your house, the house has to be above a certain temperature to remove enough heat to cool the inside... real world example is the fridge at the place I'm renting, we set the thermostat in the house to 10 C while we were away to keep the pipes from freezing but save gas, and when we came back after 2 weeks the freezer had defrosted and was probably the same temperature as the fridge. For this reason I can see why they'd say the A/C won't "work" at low temps... but seeing as how the GM engineers work in Michigan, I'd expect them to know that you need to use the A/C in winter up here sometimes! If it actually won't activate then I apologize for the above lesson, and have absolutely no idea why it's not allowed to turn on... my car runs 134a and the A/C works fine in the winter so it's not a refrigerant issue.

The other day my power mirror switch half gave out on me. It used to struggle sometimes moving either mirror down and to the right (sometimes i'd have to push in the opposite direction for a second for it to work) but now it just plain wont move either mirror down or to the right, I can only adjust up and left. When I was shopping for my truck, I test drove one with the same problem. Is this a common issue? Did the switch give out on me, or is there a loose wire somewhere in my door panel? I took the switch apart and cleaned it, everything looked good inside. Oh also it doesn't illuminate anymore (not sure if it did before this issue however). Thanks, Stu