FIESTA 04 ZETEC

Hi, would really appreciate some advice please. A few weeks ago the fan on my heater started making a really strange vibrating/grinding sound. The local garage looked and said it was all blocked up with leaves and water (they did not take the motor out though?). They said they had blasted it through with air but they think the fan motor is now damaged. They said it would be big expensive job to replace this and that I should live with it. So, on setting 1 and 2 the fan occasionally comes on but not very often, on setting 3 it all works ok (a bit noisy), on setting 4 the fan comes on but the air conditioning will not come on. 

Over the past 5 years I have had to change the resistor pack a few times when setting 1 and 2 have stopped working. However, there seems to be something else wrong. Does it sound right that the motor may have been damaged? They are saying it will be at least £260 to sort it. Thanks for any advice.

could be right , if water got into the motor and in the motor bearings they are probably stiff and dry and that impedes the motor spinning and puts additional load on it.  if that is what has happened it can only get worse, and the additional electrical load and stiffness will in time blow the thermal fuse in the resistor pack on slower fan speeds.

I do not know what the price includes - does it include new fan motor?  it is possible that the old one can be made good if removed and bearings cleaned / oiled. I don't know where the fan motor is on that car. on some cars there can be a lot of work involved in getting to it.

on my mk1 focus it was behind the glovebox and not too bad - I had to do what I described due to water in the bearings causing stiff motor and blowing thermal fuse in resistor pack. your car is same era so you might find that ford have put the motor in a not too stupid place like in the mk1 focus

(I can't comment on what you say about the aircon)

 

Blower motors are very expensive items new however second hand shouldn't be too bad. It looks to be Finis part number 1252927 and there's one on eBay for ~£30 all-in (note: this motor comes up in a search for 1252927 but doesn't seem to list that number in the listing).

If you want to PM me your registration I'll see if I can confirm the exact part number and see how it's replaced. (They are not normally all that inaccessible but I'm not familiar with your model).