hot air on 96 corolla

[kevinwatson]

My corolla recently blows out hot air when I turn on external air circulation only. I feel all ventilation areas hot. The hot air comes out no matter where I set the slider of air temperature. Note that the air conditioner is off and the engine temperature looks OK. Could you please tell what can be the cause? The air conditioner does work if I turn it on.

The car is a 96 1.6 L sedan on 113k miles. I have limited knowledge about autos in general and only change oil every about 4k miles. I flushed its coolant about 5 years ago, but the volume of coolant appears normal now at least. The car is old, but runs well. I never tune it up after I bought it in 2001 though I should have done it. I changed a pair of front brake pads, a starter a couple of years ago, and changed a battery, two sets of wipers and two sets of tires over the past 8 years. That's all about my car.

Thanks,
-Kevin

[iToaster]

The only thing that I can think of is that the control slipped off of the heater control in the engine bay. It's black and has a hose going into it, as well as the control coming out of the firewall and another hose going in. It's hard to describe, but it's closer to the driver's side. Hopefully you can find it and see if the cable slipped off or not.

[TI-CAVA]

or maybe the valve doesn't close completely... mine had that problem, just tighten the nut to secure the valve and the cable should work properly to open and close completely.