Nissan terrano ventilation fan

[saint-spoon]

Bill (gaffer), a funny thing happened with my vent fan on the terrano the other day. It was wet weather, lots of puddles and surface water which may or may not have been a factor, but my vent fan completely stopped working. Not ideal when there are three wet folk in a car and the windscreen is misting up. Firstly it started sounding like a bag of spanners and then it stopped completely. And then it started working albeit noisily once more without me doing anything to it. anyway I sussed out that it is behind the glove compartment and that the the recirc flap over to recirc I could get my fingers into the top of the fan (being and engineer of some 30 years you would have thought that I knew better than to stick my fingers into stuff but I don’t). anyway to cut it from long to short, the fans started up on its own sometimes and other times it needed me to stick my hand in a give it a spins after which it ran perfectly well. To start with it was a bag of spanners and soon after it was fine. I had to give it a spin half a dozen ties and ever since it has started perfectly well and run happily all by itself. I was thinking that something had got into the fan or perhaps some water had splashed over but then I thought maybe it’s the brushes are on their way out. Any ideas?

 

[Gafferbill]

Very difficult to diagnose over the internet but I would suspect debris and or water affecting the fans workings.
If the noise was a whirring sound then it could be a trapped leaf stalk and these can move so then the noise is intermittent.
Always worth checking the pollen filter on a Terrano........ this should be changed regularly.

I have never had a problem with the ventilation fan or the aircon.
I do renew the pollen filter regularly.