I noticed today that I barely get any air out of the two outer face vents. I don't think it's leaking out of the joints as I resealed them when I was last in there, but it's definitely something I shall check shortly.

Going through the distribution settings I noticed that when I select the face vents setting I still get most of the air coming out of the feet vents and a little bit out of the middle two face vents.

I've got no faults and I've tried a recalibration of the motors which made no obvious difference.

The distribution motor drives two flaps and when I first got the Ascot it was doing the same as yours. When I investigated, it looks like someone had been in there before me and one of the gears, driven by the quadrant, wasn't connected.

It was the one at the top which had been pulled out slightly so wasn't being moved by the quadrant. With the motor removed, I checked the movement from one end of the travel to the other and pushed it back in so it mated with the teeth on the quadrant. Whether someone had done it or if it had moved on the spindle I wouldn't like to say.

Assuming RHD you can get to it easily enough by removing the instrument cluster surround and unbolting the cluster itself. You can sit the cluster back in the hole but not put the screws in and you can then switch everything on and watch it operating before screwing it all back together. Don't try switching it on with the cluster disconnected.

Excellent, thank you. That sounds very promising. I was planning to check one of the instrument binnacle bulbs tomorrow so that's an easy check whilst I'm in there.

The gears are all connected unfortunately. I'm guessing my problem is caused by the flaps being a bit tight towards the "face" end of travel. It's not massively tight and I can move it with a finger but it's definitely got more resistance as it gets towards the end of the face setting. Once it's in the face position I can remove the motor and give the gear a little push to fully close the feet vents off.

I assume that the recalibration just runs the motors until they stop and records the potentiometer positions?

I suppose it's not really a problem as I just leave it in auto anyway. I'll probably take the dash out next year and make it a bit smoother. At least I managed to fix the dodgy binnacle bulb whilst in there.

Not long after I'd put the Ascot back together, I got the book pop up with distribution motor stalled error. I found the same as you, a bit stiff at one end of the travel. I sprayed the spindle, or at least where I could get to it, with silicone spray and worked it back and forth a few times and it freed off. Got to be worth a try even if it's only a temporary fix. There was also a fix on the other side where stiff distribution flaps were loosened off by putting a self tapper in the joint where the two sides of the heater box join to spread them apart very slightly.

In mine changing motors did not fix any issue, I found the foam insulation had disintegrated and blocked the 'flaps', which were also partially destroyed.... unfortunately that is (was) a dash out job, extremely ... rewarding, I must say.