How to replace Fabia heater / air con control panel

Recently, the heater / air con control panel failed on my wife’s car. It didn’t light up with the
headlights, the recirc and air con buttons stopped working, and so did the temperature
control. The fan still worked (different circuit), as did the vent direction control (which is
mechanical!)

This job needs the entire lower section of the dash out, so start by following the Technical
Guides for clearing the vent fan internals and steps 1-7 of the one for evaporator temp sensor
replacement (see online version for links). The latter tells you most of the tools you’ll need,
although you will also need a ratchet driver or a very short handle for your Torx heads, as
some of the screws are in tight spaces. The part number of the heater / air con panel is 6Q0
819 445, and I got mine for about £60 delivered from a scrappy.

1. With just the centre section of the lower dash remaining, remove the stereo and tray /
cupholders underneath. I won’t tell you exactly how to do this as it’s a minor security risk,
but it’s easy enough:
2. Next, pull / push out the trim either side of the stereo, and the blanking plates above it:

3. Take care to disconnect any switches:

4. Undo the two retaining screws for the heater / air con panel:

5. …and carefully pull the cover of the panel off, pushing the panel itself into the dash:
6. Unscrew the two screws shown:

7. …the one at the back of the stereo cage:

8. …this one above the clutch pedal:

9. …and this one behind the little cover above the steering wheel:
10. The centre section of the lower dash should now just pull away:

11. Put the bit of dash somewhere where it won’t get in the way or get damaged, and swap
out the heater / air con panel:
12. That’s it! Put everything back in reverse order, and all should be well. The job took me
about 90 minutes from start to finish, including the steps in the other two TGs. I found it
took a couple of uses of all the controls before fault codes stopped being recorded – not
sure why this should have been, but it didn’t stop it working so shouldn’t be an issue if
you don’t have VAG-COM etc.

HTH

Ap0gee ☺