I bought my max in May 2001, and about June-July of that year a tapping noise appeared under the right side of my dash in my '92 GXE..at first, it was only occasional and went away..shortly after it became a full time annoying tapping..then it went to changing from a tapping to a slight "nicking" (sort of that when you take a fan with plastic blades and hold somthing light to the outside edge of the blades so that it is fairly quiet) and back to tapping with hard acceleration, fast sharp turns, etc..recently it went to full time whirring and "nicking"..by now I rarely notice it is there..when it was still a tapping you could feel the tap if you reached under the dash..4 shops looked/listened/felt and could find nothing..the speed didn't change with fan speed or acceleration or anything..it was there full time with or without the recirculator fan or heater/ac fan being on..the sound has always been when the ignition is in the "on" position, whether or not the engine is running..its been like this for pretty much 2.5years..but now that I'm starting to repair all of the little things I find, I'd like to know what is causing it, and how to fix it..I tried searching, but since I don't have a clue what it is, nothing that fit came up with my search perimeters..if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them..

 

So haven't figured out what the part does yet but I think it's for your fresh air intake.

If you pull out your glove box and look straight ahead theres a small electrically operated switch on the side of the heater box, whats happened is that somewhere along the line it has over extended it's reach and is now trying to return to it's original position.

If you unplug it the noise goes away.

I'm still trying to confirm what it is but it doesn't affect any major systems and I'm pretty sure it's a recirculation switch.

 

hrm, ok, thanks..my stereo is usually loud enough that you can't hear it anyway, but when its quiet, anyone but me sitting in the car is bugged by it..

 

You talkin about the relay under the glove box?