Chrysler Repair: 2000 Cirrus No Heat, postal mail, ac unit

Question
Hi The dealer says the cause of "no heat" in my 2000 Cirrus V6 is a broken temperature control lever. The part is $15 but the labor to fix it is almost $500, because they have to remove most of the dash. Is this repair something I can do or take to a non-dealer to repair? Any idea how involved it is to remove the radio/CD changer to replace the broken part? Any pictures/instructions on doing this? Thanks.


Answer
Hi dmetro,
I copied and mailed the pages today. I looked over the drawings and it appears that the temp door lever is going to be on the side of the unit that faces the cabin so it should be a cinch to replace it. Check that the door itself isn't jambed in which case you may have to do some disassembly. By accident I missed a couple of pages, but you will have all the ones that cover the servicing of the doors and disassembly. The two I left out have to do with the AC plumbing part of the unit, and you can let me know if I should send those too, later.
Roland


Hi dmetro,
You have been given questionable information by the dealer. You don't have to remove the radio/CD changer to get access to the heater/ac unit. But I think the best way for you to assess the job is to look at the pages from the '96 shop manual I have that show the unit and its servicing and then look under the dash. I am still not certain if you can reach the lever without removing part of the unit (I hope that the entire unit doesn't have to come out!) but if you had the pages, took out the heater/ac control unit and followed the cable to the door lever you would then know how much more work it would be to exchange the lever (then too it could just be a problem at the front end of the temp cable  rather than the lever). The pages are very helful but I haven't actually seen it in person so I have to leave it to you to decide if you want to try it yourself.
I can copy about 24 pages from the manual and postal mail them to you at my cost of about $2. So if you would want me to do this just give me your mailing address. You can send me back the $2 after you receive the pages.
Roland