Vectra-C 2004 silly climate control knob

[The_Dutchman]

Hello everybody,

The middle button of my climate control panel is getting me a little frustrated. Whenever I turn the knob the setting jumps around almost randomly. When I try to put the fan on from 1 to 4 I have to go through a series of serious luck to do that.. It rather goes 1..7..6...5..7..6..3...1..4. Navigating through the settings is also a pain in the ....

So I took it out, I know something of electronics and opened it up but it seemed soldered very good. So it probably is the center knob rotary encoder, but finding a replacement part that fits would be nearly impossible.

So I searched for an other panel. My panel has part number 13138196 and the one I found has part number 13212340. The latter comes from a Vectra C Elite 2006. It looks exactly the same. Could I risk it ?

Thanks in advance.

[DTi Elite]

mine was having problems with the centre button & everything looked ok , re soldered it all & been fine since .
for what it takes to do , you may as well try it .

[The_Dutchman]

I've resoldered the centre button rotary encoder but didn't help. What exactly did you resolder? It is all pick&place reflow so most of the connections are very good.

[DTi Elite]

re soldered all the parts of it that are soldered to the board , think there were about 6 connections & a couple of tags .

[djenka018]

7 years later someone may find it useful....

I sprayed some WD into encoder and buttons/dial started working.

It is not a pot but a directional encoder and humidity makes patina which makes the whole thing go silly.
Experience from HiFi repair days approaching the end of the last millenium

[AhmadHisham]

For me, I was having a faulty center dial, (front + rear) defrost and air recirculation buttons were not working or even the light of the buttons, I dissembled the whole climate control module and cleaned it with alcohol and made sure that alcohol went inside the buttons and the dials themselves then used electronics hot air gun to get rid of what left of alcohol faster, now the buttons working and the dial is accurate.

[IanR1969]

I'm having exactly this issue, but went for the mindless option of buying a new ECC from Germany. Was not too pricey but wish I'd found this thread before. Anyway thanks to all contributors