Ever since I got myPorsche Beater Boxster I had no climate control. The original owner must have tried to fix it since so many pieces were broken and fuses related to the climate controller were missing. I bought a used controller I found on craigslist and took it apart. It turns out I two types of controllers and just swapping them caused my fuse to blow. Sounds familiar? The next step was to see what circuit board was causing the fuse to blow. Even I would have a blown fuse the climate controller still had power as the front panel remained illuminated. I traced back the blown fuse to the instrument cluster, this caused a major problem since all the engine vitals rely on the reading the gauges and monitors.
After troubleshooting for awhile I decided to swap out the main circuit boards. Once I had everything back together I did a test “turn on”. No blown fuses and both the instrument cluster and climate controller were working properly. I re-installed all the parts and finished installing all the console units. Not bad for a cheap fix, soldering iron and a few hours.
This is the climate controller before my repair. Not only was the display faulty the controller portion did not adjust hot or cold temperature values and fan speed.
This the after the repair photo. Also notice the placement of the radio and climate controller. I placed the controller at the highest DIN and radio directly under it. I took out the useless cupholders and purchased a cubby storage container you see at the bottom. The CD disc holder should be replaced with something more useful as I no longer use the built in CD player since I have an iPhone AUX adapter installed.