Hi there! Long time reader, 1st time asker. I'm the proud owner of a 2002 Fiat Stilo 1.9 JTD, bought 2nd hand with a couple of things to do. Mechanical wise, the car is sound, just i tiny noise when switching gears (and abruptly pressing/releasing the accelerator, i can hear a *tock* *tock* noise) that my mechanic said is due to the gearbox differential worn and not that big of a deal. The thing is, yesterday, as i was trying the mend the infamous BOSCH FLAP ACTUATORS i caught a grasp of part of my main ventilation duct (i think) blowing air to an area that was not supposed to. The culprit: a broken piece of plastic that the previous owner broke when trying to remove the plastic panel on the passenger's side (the console part, on the right). I attached someone elses picture but i've drawn the thing that's broken (in red, pointed with an arrow). Since i'm not a mechanic but i'm kind of handy (i repair computers, laptops and so on for a living) is it hard to replace that part? I can see at least 3 screws but i cannot see the other side. Anyone has any idea on how to replace that broken piece? Is it a dash out job or not really? Thanks in advance!

EDIT: It's a left drive car, passenger's side is the right.

I can't see which area of the heater it is from that picture but in cars with air conditioning the heater is one huge box that doesn't seem to have any ancillary parts or accessories bolted to it that can be bought separately.

So it's probably going to be difficult (probably not impossible though) to unbolt anything and replace a damaged part unless you have a spare second-hand one lying around to take the parts off.

If you can unbolt things then it's worth unbolting as much as you can to see if you can remove the piece that's broken. You might be successful or you might end up finding some screw that is only accessible when the heater is out of the car...


Ralf S.

Let me try to be more precise: the foot panel of the central console, on the right side (my passenger side), were does your plastic screw thingy (to fixate the panel) goes? that's what's broken in mine, it's that part. Normally you have 2 plastic screws to fixate the panel, one near the gearbox, on the lower right side and the other near the pollen filter lid, underneath the dashboard. The plastic support for that screw (near the pollen filter) is broken. that's the area i'm trying to fix. the picture is of that area. i hope it makes more sense now...

Ah.. I see. That photo confused me...

The plastic panel is held in with some screws and some clips.

The clips are metal barbs/hook that fit onto a tab moulding that's part of the plastic panel.

On mine, one of the plastic tabs has snapped off, so there's nowhere to clip the metal barb.. so yours might be the same (i.e. the problem might be the plastic panel rather than the heater/box where it attaches).

There wouldn't be a way to repair the plastic panel since the tabs are moulded part of the panel. If one broke, you could try to glue it but it wouldn't stay attached.

I'll see if I can take a photo of the back of my panel this weekend, so you can compare where there are tabs and where there aren't.


Ralf S.

Thanks for the reply Ralf!! Yes, i would be most thankful if i could see a picture of what's supposed to be like. In other question, if you can help me, i have a dual zone climate control but sometimes the passenger side (my right side) goes berserk and despite being on, lets say, 25º it shoots way cooler air than what's supposed to. I read somewhere around here that it was a BOSCH/DENSO actuator that must be broken but i dont know which one. Do you have any idea what it could be? i have this part number 46723329 for the actuator that controls the central vents for the passenger side but just now, as i was driving home, none of my central vents were giving the specified temperature. I reseted the climate control and again, the driver side front vent was blowing 25º but the passenger side was definitely below that, despite being on 25º also. Could it be the mixture flap or some kind of resistor? Do you know the part number? Really really really thank you for your help, mate

P.S. It's not always blowing the wrong temp, sometimes it is just right. I perform a reset and it works for a couple of days but it starts to fail after that. It's not always like that, sometimes i get the wrong temp for a couple of minutes and then it goes back to the right temperature without issues, i can hear the motors working. If i set the airflow to the windshield and back again to the front vents it usually solves it for a while.

I don't think it's going to be the physical flaps since they tend to work or not work... if they work sometimes but not all the time, then it's most probably the actuators that set the vents (or fail to set the vents).

The internal temperature sender and the CC brains are probably okay since you can get the CC working occasionally. If these were broken, then they would probably not work at all.

I'm not sure if the actuator is a kind of stepper motor.. but if it is, then it would be my main suspect since as above, they work sometimes but not all the time. There must be a resistor in there to control the stepper motor but I'd say (with limited knowledge) that when a resistor fails it's more likely to be failed forever... or just fail when it gets hot... rather than fail randomly.

If the actuator isn't too expensive then it's probably worth a punt just to change them (apart from I don't know how much dashboard you have to dismantle to get them out)... but also, they're pretty old now, so change all of them not just one.. or you know you'll be back a few months from now to change another one..


Ralf S.