I spent a Sunday afternoon I'll never get back putting a blend door actuator in a 2011 Avalon
Never again, I'm still licking my wounds
Of course, the 1 of 4 that went bad was the mode door, so it was stuck on defrost/feet
Tolerable in the winter, not very comfortable in the summer
Toyota wants $400+ for the part, they'll sell you an assembly with both actuators and the drive gears pre attached
By the book it's a 6 hour job, and the dash is supposed to come out
Once you pry the old one out, it's not so bad, shave down the center bore to ease installation, the major pain is getting all 3 linkages timed right
Space is tight, and the service manual isn't very clear
It assumes the HVAC case is removed from the car and on the bench
The trim work was fairly light, just 10mm and Philips
Shimmying this contraption in and out while timing it right was the nightmare
You can pop it apart and put the one $50 actuator in, fiddly but doable
It's a GPD 1712382
Getting all those tracks to line up with the lugs on the link arms while getting the whole assembly back in there, plus getting the screws in was simply hateful
I got pretty good at it after the ~fifth time to get the timing right
Top screw is best accessed through the recirc door
Small ratcheting bit drivers and a flight of extensions will be your friends
After a half dozen or so tries, I got it all working as it should
Used Techstream to run the servomotor calibration, it passed easily
This cured the blinking defrost light on startup
You gotta put a fresh cabin filter
It'll be back, they always come back
Going rate for this job is $1100-$1500 in my area, 6 hours of labor @ ~$200 per hour, and a heavily marked up $400 part
A ~$60 actuator, $5 CAF, and ~5 hours of my Sunday add up to I'm not sure yet
$300 all in
