I was getting into my car one hot afternoon and the heater just turns itself on full blast. I had to turn the knob all the way to the last red line then back to the blue and it took a while to cool off.
Ok, an update! Turned the key to on and smoke came out of the defroster again. turned the key off. The heater kept running. Took it to the dealer, no codes. I have an OBD11 and mine showed no codes! Sheesh, was told to bring it back if it burned up!
I think that I might have found the problem. The heater control relay was HOT! I replaced it and all seems ok now. Time will tell. The heater control is solid state and the dealer said that they have to completely remove the dash to replace it. When you turn the fan up, you will notice that it ramps up slowly. That is a sure indication that it is solid state. The old type had resistor coils, for fan speeds, worked great.
I have had this actually happen twice. Not sure what the cause, I turned on my AC and at first the sound was there, but then it went full blast to HEAT. This is in JULY......I turned off AC, shutoff the car and waited about 2 minutes. Started the car back up and then turned the AC on, and it worked. Something is really scary about this, because if a heating element has a part in this it could ignite something, right????
- Josalyne H.,
Stockbridge, GA, US
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This problem has occurred since day one. I brought it and no one seems to know what is wrong with it, but every time I get in to start the car the heat comes on full blast. The switch is set on off, so I have to keep turning it off and on until it cuts off. It never cuts off on the first attempt.I HATE THIS F*CKING CAR
This has happened to me a few times since I purchased this vehicle used from a Chevy dealership with only 8k miles back in February of this year. Now that I see others have similar problems, I'm going to try to note the exact circumstances. At first it seemed like some sort of fluke and happened the first time after running the A/C, with the fan not set particularly high, and shutting the car off while my wife ran into a store. I left the key in the ignition and all the way off (not in Aux mode) to listed to the radio. Less than 5 minutes later she returned, I started the car and was met with the fan on high and heat blasting. I shut the car off made sure the fan was off and made sure the climate control was rolled to full cool and may have hit a few other buttons in the process.
The next time it happened was a similar circumstance but in between I had multiple instances when nothing out of the ordinary happened at all. Today it was cool enough that I didn't need the AC on but did have the fan on low to help pull in outside air and the same thing happened. I haven't figured out the rhyme or reason just yet but have not had the problem when I take the key out of the ignition and return to the car quickly. My son has a 2014 Malibu and said it happened to him just once but he doesn't recall if he was running the AC or not.
We've owned Chevy vehicles for years and have been very happy with them thus far. I will not be happy if we get the same response as saumd44 or thurst got from their dealers. In the interim, I will be contacting my dealer but also more carefully observing the exact circumstances surrounding this nuisance and come back here to post my findings (or lack thereof).
The issue of the heat coming on full blast when it is in the off position has happened to me 5x since I purchased this car in November 2012. I took it to that dealership the first 3x it happened and was told each time there was no issue showing when they did the diagnostic scan. Without a code and since it was not happening at the moment I brought it in, there was nothing further they could do. I was told to just take a note of each time it happened. I was also told if the heat/ac stopped working to bring it in.
When this A/C heater problem first occurred, the blower came on full blast and smoke came out the defrost vents. Smelled of electrical wires burning! It has smoked twice when the ignition was turned on, but vehicle not started. Then it quit burning an now just comes on full blast every now and then.
The dealer says that they can do nothing until it quits or burns up!
I bought the 2013 Malibu LS because my 2003 Malibu LS was the best car I ever owned, and while this car is an improvement, it has it's quirks! Come on, people, instead of walking around stupidly yelling that we are No. 1 when it comes to cars, let's actually build something worth driving!
This has happened more than 30 times and there is one other driver that this is not counted for, not sure how many times it has happened total.
Will start car, all heater settings are in the off position, this does not have automatic climate control and the heater will come on full blast.
We have to turn the heater on then off again to make the heater turn off.
Dealer says keep track of when it happens we have and there is no consistencies in when, morning, evening, all levels of setting, defrost, face heat, feet heat, has happened in each one. Since this is not a known problem, it doesn't throw a code then there is not fix. Just deal with it.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
some type of relay fan came on when I cut car off.
gauge goes to hot to cool, crazy. No warning light come on.
- pfrances, Hedgesville, US