2003 Dodge Caravan Cabin Air Filter ? not there ?

Cabin air filters haven’t been around all that long. They first started showing up 20 years ago in the US market, most of those were European cars when they did first show up, and they’ve only become a more commonly equipped in the last 10 years or so. But for as long as cabin air filters have been around, they’ve always been optional equipment. I have a lot of experience with the 01-07 generation Caravan and I can’t remember ever seeing one actually equipped with a cabin air filter. In my experience, odors from the heater duct work isn’t common with those vans either unless something got spilled into the ducts or the evaporator drain got plugged. Instead of complaining about what you think Dodge did wrong, try to instead describe the odor and tell us about the climate you live in. That info should help you solve your problems faster.

If I’m not mistaken on many Chrysler products it was optional or cam with an upgraded HVAC system.

You could always pull out the blower motor and do some cleaning that way.

It’s not uncommon for rodents to nest in HVAC cases so you might be on the right track. The problem is in finding where it is if you’ve got it. Pulling the blower motor isn’t a bad idea, but be ready for some of the screws to be a bear to get access to. There’s one particular screw up high on the back of the blower that is accessible if you cut away some of the padding behind the carpet. Otherwise, if you had to follow the service manual to the letter, it would tell you to remove the HVAC case to remove the blower motor and that’s an all day job to do. Just cut the padding to reduce the misery of that job. I’ve never been ashamed to pull the passenger side seat out to give you room to lay down on the job either. Even cutting the padding, it’s a tough reach.

That’s just one place to look and there’s a good probability that you won’t find it behind the blower anyway. There’s so much of that case you just couldn’t explore without removing the dash. A decent bore scope would be your best shot of locating a possible rodent’s nest but you’re still not guaranteed to find anything.

The Lysol probably isn’t a great idea either. At best, it might mask the odor for a while before it eventually dies out or it breeds with the bad smell making a new kind of funk….Potpourri Death we’ll call it. 😀 If you think it could be a mold or mildew kind of smell, then the Lysol might be ok. There is a chemical something or other available in auto parts stores to kill the mold and neutralize the odor.

How did you go about replacing the blower? Did you follow the factory service information and pull the dash or did you just cut the carpet back a little and remove that lousy screw I warned about earlier in this post? Was the new blower a plug and play unit or did you have to cut and splice wiring?

[quote=”Mikerich10″ post=156235]You mentioned you are familiar with the 01-07 Caravans. I actually have an 03 Chrysler Voyager and was subject to the poor designed drain tube and water got into the ducting and eventually screwed up the blower motor. The motor would still work off and on and the ac/heat atleast worked. I finally replaced the blower motor yesterday and it runs like a champ, now I have a different problem. You can hear the blower motor running at full force, but no air is circulating through any of the vents. It seems like when you move the switch to change from floor to defrost, etc, it makes no difference at all. No it feels as if I have no heat in the van at all. In your experience, what did I mess up while changing the blower motor?

Thank you in advance,
Mikerich10[/quote]

typically when the air isnt changing locations it defaults to the defroster setting if thats the case its likely a vacuum leak perhaps caused by moving things around when changing the blower

I pulled the carpet back, replacing the blower motor itself really wasn’t that tough. When I got to work this morning I asked one of my fellow techs about it. We work at a forklift dealership as techs, both from the car world before, but him much more recently than I. He asked if I actually checked polarity, which I hadn’t. It was pre-pinned in a factory style connector and it had never crossed my mind that someone would have pinned it wrong. I swapped them and everything works perfectly now. The fan wheel/ motor was actually turning the wrong direction from the reversed polarity. Even though it is working now, I plan to write to the seller I bought it from and let them know so hopefully it wont happen to others. It was something that a lot of techs would never consider, like myself.