Air blowing through vents at highway speeds, but the fan is off!

[dartmouth01]

Hi all,

I've been doing some work on my girlfriend's 2000 beetle 2.0, and an interesting issue has come up that I can't find an answer to in search. First, I'll preface by saying that the issue may (or may not) be related to the fact that the AC no longer blows cold air as of a couple weeks ago. I'll be checking into usual suspects that I've learned from this forum tomorrow, but tonight when driving the car we noticed that there was a significant amount of air coming through the vents at highway speed. The temp felt like ambient air, and if I turned the temp to hot, it would make the air hot. The air flow through the vents would slow down proportionally to the speed. The fan control was turned off. Would this issue be related to the AC not working, and help pinpoint the problem? Thanks in advance!!!

[wawalker]

Most vehicles will do this. There is higher than normal atmospheric pressure on the frontal surfaces of the vehicle created by the vehicle moving forward thru the air--the intake for the HVAC system is at the base of the windshield. The air must either part and move around the car or in this case force its' way into the car--there are also vents that allow the air out of the car near the back. It's not related to your A/C problem.

[Evanrude]

Just push the "recirculation" button... and it stops outside air

That is, if you don't want the ambient flow like that.

[D2Beetle]

wawalker is right, but the forced air should not be that noticeable. You might have a Blend Door issue