Lost down heater vent under seat (Bermuda Triangle!)
Plado
10-07-2003, 12:53 PM
Yesterday the right hand radio knob flew off. It landed behind the drivers seat and rolled or bounced on the carpet straight down into a double vent that is wide open under the driver's seat and aimed at the rear passengers on the floor level. It has no mesh to protect valuables and small items being lost down inside. This is an unbelievable omission on the part of the car builders/designers.
Blowing the heater on full doesn't spit the lost radio disk/knob out.
It's impossible to get fingers down inside - it's nearly 9 inches deep down in that cavern ! So we have tried a flexible grabber, a long magnet on a string and various other brain-teasers of solutions all to no avail.
There appears no way to remove the whole plastic vent without stripping out the whole of the floor carpetting and central tunnel between the seats.
Surely this is not a correct way to design a heater outlet under the seat to warm passengers in the back seats?
Does anyone know how to remove said vent without dismantling the whole car ? Or has it got to be taken to the dealership and a collossal fee paid to have the radio knob retrieved? I bet that it would be just as expensive to order a new radio knob.
Why have Vauxhall made this astonishing mug-trap for the unwary built in to the floor of this car? The idea is preposterous. Back in the days of Vauxhall Victors - rear vents were put in the sides of the car aimed at the feet and nothing could get lost down them. That system worked perfectly so there was no reason to change it.
Blowing the heater on full doesn't spit the lost radio disk/knob out.
It's impossible to get fingers down inside - it's nearly 9 inches deep down in that cavern ! So we have tried a flexible grabber, a long magnet on a string and various other brain-teasers of solutions all to no avail.
There appears no way to remove the whole plastic vent without stripping out the whole of the floor carpetting and central tunnel between the seats.
Surely this is not a correct way to design a heater outlet under the seat to warm passengers in the back seats?
Does anyone know how to remove said vent without dismantling the whole car ? Or has it got to be taken to the dealership and a collossal fee paid to have the radio knob retrieved? I bet that it would be just as expensive to order a new radio knob.
Why have Vauxhall made this astonishing mug-trap for the unwary built in to the floor of this car? The idea is preposterous. Back in the days of Vauxhall Victors - rear vents were put in the sides of the car aimed at the feet and nothing could get lost down them. That system worked perfectly so there was no reason to change it.
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