I am looking into this for a buddy of mine who is not yet a member of the site as his computer crashed unexpectedly and he can't get a new one quite yet. Anyway, the climate controls on his 07 Sahara are getting very hot to the touch , so much so that it's difficult to even adjust them. His dealer tried to say that this is normal as the climate controls are so close to the stereo and the stereo generates a lot of heat. I think this is BS as the air vents and window controls are between the two. I have not had this problem with my 08 Sahara, at least not yet, or not that I've noticed. Has anyone heard of this problem or have any info about it? Any help would be great!

 

mine is also very hot my dealer said the samething

 

The dials will be warm. But, shouldn't get too hot to touch. The reason isn't the stereo. It's a couple of things. first, drive your jeep for an hour or so. Then lift up the carpet in the front and feel under the carpet against the hump in the middle abover the tranny. Very very warm under there. Maybe hot even. There is no carpet between the switches and the steel. Also adding to the mix is the switches themselves. There are "Pots" back there for the fan speed switch. That is a unit that is a big adjustable resistor. When running the fan on lower speeds the "Pot" (resistor) is absorbing a lot of power giving less power to the fan resulting in a lower fan speed. This power loss is transfered as heat. My 96 Chevy's "pot" got so hot that the wiring harness to the switch and the switch melted.

 

My '08 jk 4 door does the same thing. It seems to be even hotter if I have the panel lights on. One thing I will say for the Jeep jk...they were very consistent at the factory. They built the same problems into all of them.


Rich

 

i have had a yj, tj and now a jk. all three the temperature controls got hot. mainly due to the incandescent light that is behind them that illuminates them when the lights are on. i never had a problem during the day.

 

Open the temperature control unit and replace the light bulbs with LEDS. Heat problem solved....

 

Yeah, they get 'warm'...one more reason for everyone to have a fire extinguisher on board for us 6spd drivers

 

yep, it's the little lights behind the dials, knobs, and switches. Leave a light on a while and it gets warm.

 

Thanks for all the info everyone..
Still not sure about it.. cause my buddy's climate controls definitely get hot, not just warm.. There may be a larger problem with his controls than what everyone has described.. TexsDream77.. I did lift the carpet last night as you suggested.. and the tranny was definitely warm after we had his JK out for a drive.. but not as bad as the controls.. Needless to say, he called up the dealer for a service visit.. I'll post whatever he finds out

 

I have the same problem. Its really in the center knob only though. I did this same thread like 6 months ago. At least i know im not alone or crazy for that matter .