Foot Vent
 

I have a 2003 Protege LX and there is always a small breeze coming from the drivers side foot vent (when fan is on or driving with car in fresh air mode). I checked the levers and such under the dash and they all appear to be working correctly. Does anyone else notice this small breeze coming mostly from the foot vent closest to the gas pedal on their Protege? I would like to know if this is a problem with all the Proteges or just mine. I would assume if this problem was covered under warranty at all the coverage would expire at 12k. Since I’m almost there I need to figure out if I want to bring it into the dealer or not.

Mike

This may be dumb, but do you have your air flow control switch set to blow on the floor or perhaps a combination of face/floor? If not, then chances are the is a problem with that switch to where the system isn't closing the floor vents. I had this problem on another car of mine and it turned out that a leaf had gotten sucked up into the vents and wasn't letting the system close them fully. Perhaps it will be as simple as that.

I had that exact same problem, it's very easy to fix, this a reply I made in some old thread:

This is not a "problem" - it's the way the car is designed.

When the selector is on fresh air, outside air will blow in through the vents when the car is in motion. Regardless of whether you are on dash, defrost, or floor.

I actually like this feature - gives me a slight air movement without having to keep the fan actually blowing.

Just set the switch to recirculate the air, with the fan speed on zero, and the breeze will go away.

Just know that you cannot use recirculated air on defrost.

~HH

Of course you will get a slight "breeze" if you have outside air selected, regardless of whether your fan is on or not. However, you still have a choice of where you want the air to flow. If you don't have the floor selected, there shouldn't be any air going there.

How come?

When on recirculate, air is drawn into the system through the vents by the windshield.

It'd be kinda tough to draw air in AND blow it out from the same vents ;).

The system doesn't even allow you to select it - if you use defrost (or feet & defrost), the fresh air/recirc button will only stay on fresh when you push it - it will not change to recirc.

~HH

FYI, this is also a bit of a saftey feature.

There have been incidents (in all cars, not just Protege's) where a person's airbag went off while the car was totally sealed up - windows all rolled up, no air moving or anything - and the resulting sudden increase in air pressure inside the vehicle actually burst people's eardrums and made them somewhat hearing impaired. Sometimes permanently.

I like the moving air in the car. The reason I started this thread was because when the foot vent is suppose to be closed some air still comes out of it. Not a lot but enough to bother my driving foot. In the summer with the A/C on my foot gets very cold and it makes driving miserable for me. So I wanted to know if it was something wrong with just my car or if it was a defect in the design of the vent and all proteges leak. Since this bothers me so much I am going to call the dealer and see if they can fix the vent.