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2013 cabin air intake location? Mice at work

13K views 6 replies 3 participants last post by  Cab0oze 
#1 ·
I went on vacation for a week and came home to discover that mice have chewed up the firewall insulation and carried it into the air intake. The blower is humming and vibrating because it's packed full of mouse nest. I pulled the cabin air filter and removed as much as I could, then reached up into the opening and pulled out even more, but the fan is still making noise and vibrating.

I understand that removing the blower case is a major job and I was hoping I could possibly snake a wire or something into the system ahead of the fan and maybe pull out the offending material. The problem is that I can't figure out where the fresh air enters the system. Can anyone help? Google gives me all sorts of threads on changing the cabin air filters but nothing about coming in from the other side.

It's still under warranty, and they SHOULD cover it because they designed it so mice can get in, but I'm doubtful they will. Better if I can just fix it myself.

TIA for any help.
 
#5 · (Edited)
So here is the cabin air intake on a 2013 Mazda3 :



To access it you need to remove the wipers, the wiper cowl and an additional plastic piece that is under the cowl. The cowl comes off from D to P side: it's actually two pieces but they are conjoined by the washer fluid tube and it was just easier to remove them as if they were one piece. You have to remove the fluid hose connection on the P side to completely remove it and set it aside. No screws, all are clips or the plastic pin gizmos that remove with a 1/2 twist of a Phillips screwdriver. The weatherstripping isn't shown, but it just clips in as well.



Here's a shot of my filters and of the wad of chewed up insulation that came out of the blower duct. Once all the plastic is off you can reach into the duct and actually touch the inside of the squirrel cage blower. A small shop vac nozzle will fit as well, and you can give it a pretty thorough cleanout.



Although taking all that stuff off is a PITA I would rather go this route than trying to access it from the inside. I think you pretty much have to remove the entire dash to access the blower case from inside the cabin.
 
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