How to Replace Heater AC Mode Switch 2000-07 Ford Focus

Hey friends. It's Len here at One A Auto. Today we're working on our 2001 Ford Focus, and I want to show you how to replace the heater/AC mode selector switch. It's going to be fairly simple. I can do it. You can do it too. If you need this or any other part you can always check us out at 1AAuto.Com. Thanks.

Okay, so to do this, we're just going to need some basic tools. If you have an after market stereo like this one, you know you're going to have to figure out how to get it out. Generally speaking, if it's the original stereo there'll be like two holes on this side, two holes on the side, you push in the little tools and then you should be able to slide your stereo out. This is after market, so what I like to do is just give it a little tug, and then come along the side with my trim tool, just like that. I'm going to do the same to the other side. Just go in and give it a little twist. Give this a nice, easy wiggle. Here we are. I'm being gentle. Just come in here, we'll disconnect the antenna, set that aside. Make sure you don't forget to connect that back in. Grab this stuff over here. There we are. Check your electrical connectors, make sure there's no corrosion. This one looks good. Do the same to this one. Here we are. Looks good. We'll set our radio/head unit aside.

Okay, so we have four screws, one here, here, and then the same on the other side, there and there. I'm going to use my seven millimeter. You can use a ratchet or whatever you've got. There's the first two bolts. They're both the exact same. All four bolts, exact same. We'll set these aside. Move ahead to the next step. We're going to continue with our plastic trim tool. Just come in under here along the top, try to slide this out a little bit. Okay, seems to be catching over here. I don't know what this thing is. Who smokes cigarettes nowadays? Get that out of here.

Okay, so we've got all of our connectors in here. Coming down along, we've got the connector for the blower motor speed right here. We've got our selector to designate where the air is going to be coming out of, whether it's your vent, or your defrost, or your floor ... well, wherever you want it to come out of, obviously. And then this over here, this is the selector, for the hot and cold, or AC and heat, right here. So to get this to pull out a little further, I'm just going to disconnect the four way flashers switch, see if I can grab it. It's right along the side. That's a little push connector. Okay, we'll set that aside. This gives us a little bit of room. On the backside of the selector switch there's a Phillips head screw, so I'm just going to use my quarter inch ratchet with a Phillips head bit, because it's a little easier than, you know, trying to ... maybe it's a little easier. Let's see. Trying to get a screwdriver back there will be pretty hard. Here's our screw, super short. We'll set this aside.

Let's start disconnecting some wiring from the back here. I'm just going to grab them, give them a little tug. They pop right out. Take a peek at them. They look good. This right here, it's got a little a push on it. Just go ahead and push right there and this should separate. There we go. This one, same thing. I'm just going to press on the little tab, roll it down, and then lift it up and out. This right here, it's hard to see from this angle, but I think I can pull it out like that. Take a peak. Looks good. This one right here ... let's see. It should be right here. Slide that out. Take a peak. It looks good. Cruising along. We've got one left here. I'm just going to press on the bottom, slide that out. There's our center console facial unit.

Okay, so the part we're going to be looking for looks like this. It's going to be located right underneath the driver's side dash. There it is right there. It looks like it's going to be very easy to get to. Okay, so to remove this there's going to be three clips. They're going to be very easy to grab onto. There's going to be one right here where you can see those nubs, one over here, and one on the backside right there. Okay. All you do is grab them, pull them away from the unit, twist the unit up and away, and off goes.

I'm going to get under here. The hardest part is getting both arms and your head under here. Push on both those at the same time. Now I'm going to do the last one. There we are. I'm going to grab the unit if I can find it. Here we are. We just got to get this off of here. To do that and I'm just going to lift up right here and then separate the two. Oh ... get it under there. I now what you're thinking. Come on Len. Sorry. I'm thinking it too. I'm not going to get mad at you. Okay, I'm just going to pull it through that right there, and right through here. There's our unit.

Okay, so there's where the screw was that we took off before we took off this whole unit. Theoretically, if you wanted to, you could wait on taking that out and not take it out at the beginning, and do it now. I took it out at that point because it seemed as though just by doing this, this would come out fairly easily. It does not. So that's why I took it out originally, and then I disconnected it the rest of the way. With that said, now what we want to do, come around to the forward side, these buttons, they usually don't want to pull out very easy, so you're just going to have to really try to grip onto it with your gorilla strength and pop them off. Okay, we'll set that aside. Flip it back over. Now you just take this unit, turn it clockwise, pull it right out.

Okay friends, a quick product comparison for you. Over here we have our original heater AC mode selector switch out of our 2001 Ford Focus ZX Three hatchback. Over here we have our brand new, quality One A Auto part. These parts are built exactly the same. We'll start with one end. This is the selector area where you would put the the switch onto. That'll go right on there. You've got your mounting area. You've got the old cable, comes right along, ends up at this side. Same thing here. Brand new cables, comes to the mode selector area. This is the part that goes underneath your dash. As you can tell this is a quality part, with that said, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't want to install this into the vehicle, so I'm going to go ahead and do it. If you need this or any other part, you can always check us out at 1AAuto.Com. Thanks.

All right, so we have our mode selector switch here. We're just going to line up these tabs with these holes, just like that. I'm going to turn it so the hole lines up with the mounting spot. I'm going to use my Phillips head screwdriver: I'm going to put it in this screw right now. That's nice and snug. I'm just screwing into plastic, so I don't want to tighten it down too much. You can see that there's a flat spot on the shaft right there. There's also a flat spot on the knob. I don't have to say it, but I will. We're just going to line those up, press this in, give it a little squeeze. That's going nowhere. Give it a little tug. It's tight, works good. Let's try it out.

All right, we'll just give it a little try. You can see it spinning up there. It's not binding anywhere. Awesome. Let's install it.

Okay, so we're going to take this, we're going to run it through the hole here and then back down over to the driver's side, underneath the dash there. Just put it in through here ... maybe, get my fingers in there. Here we are, make its way down there. I'm just going to make sure that I'm in the right area before I continue in case I have to pull it out. climb under here. Oh yeah, that looks good. Cool. All right, so now we're on the backside again. We've got all this wiring mess. Let's see if we can figure it out. This one right here, it's going to go right in there. Click. I heard it. We've got this one. Go right up in here. Click. Heard it. This one, nice and big, right over there. And we gt this guy. See if I can bring it around. There it is. It goes right on those two prongs right there. And then lastly, for this lower area we've got this right here. I'm going to start with the lower area of it, try to get it pressed in, and then squeeze up to the top. That's in there. Cool.

All right, Wwe've got these over here. The single wire goes to the bottom. Just press it in there. There's no click really. Well, it sounded like there was a click but usually I never hear a click. Now grab this one. There we are. Oh okay, I heard a click. That's nice. I like it. I like it. We got this guy right up here, that goes in for the four way switch. There we are. We've got extra parts. Just kidding. Let me make sure that we get the stereo back in, up and running, on this puppy. You can't drive without a stereo. Everybody knows that. Get this in here. I'm just going to press it in. Here we are, very nice. We'll grab our four screws and we'll continue.

We've got our four screws, seven millimeter, and I just have it on a nut driver but you can use whatever you've got. I'm just going to start it in, just like always I like to get all the bolts, for whatever it is I'm working with, started at the same time before I go ahead and tighten any of them down, just in case I have to shift anything around. There we are, all four are started. I'll just snug these up. All four are tight. Let's move ahead to the next step.

All right, so when you're underneath the dash, you're going to notice that maybe this right here it doesn't line up with what you're dealing with underneath the box. So ... underneath the box. Okay, so when you're underneath the dash, you might notice that this inner area right there doesn't line up with what you're dealing with. If it doesn't, just reach your hand up, give it a little twist until it does line up with what you need it to. Okay? I'm going to turn it like this. I'm pretty sure I left off on feet. I'm going to come back through. Here we are. Okay. Yeah, that looks good. Now to do this, I'm just going to line it up and then press it in. I mean there's no screws or anything to hold this. There we are. All three of them clicked right in, easy peasy. Come back up here. I'm going to listen. Yeah.

I'll show you what it's doing down under there. Can you see right straight down at the end? What it's doing is it's changing where the air's going. It's pretty basic. I probably don't have to tell you that, but I do want to show you that it is functioning.

Okay, so now we're going to connect in the stereo. Okay, so we've got our stereo unit. Let's connect it in. Here we are. Be careful not to let it fall and smash or anything like that. These are fairly sensitive. Click that in. This connector right here was not connected to anything when we started, so I'm not worried about connecting it now. That only leaves us one thing. The antenna wire just goes right into the back of your unit. Just press it in as far as it can go. Bonk bonk, there we are. Slide this right in here, nice and easy. If it feels like it's getting jammed up then, you know, pull it out, try again. There we are, very nice. All right, lastly, this useless thing, it's good for change or whatever you want it to for. Let's see if I can get it in there. There's a little channel that runs right along here, just need to get it in there. Very nice.

All right, friends. There you are. Easy peasy. Thanks.

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