To reduce draughts in a Duetto

You may wish to reduce the through draught in a Duetto on a MK5 Transit, especially at night when the wind blows on the front of the 'van. The best way to do this is to turn the ventilation to recirculate, rather than just closing the air outlets in the cab. Just closing the outlets is rarely satisfactory, mainly because they tend to leak air and in cold weather this affects the heating.

The point of this post is to emphasise that in order to properly switch from through ventilation to recirculate, the ignition needs to be on at the time the ventilation knob is turned from, through, to recirculate. If just the knob is turned without the ignition being on (the engine does not need to be running), nothing happens. This is because unlike most vehicles that I have owned, the Transit has an electric motor to operate the flaps that close off the through air and allow recirculation to take place. It takes circa 10 seconds for this to happen and it will only happen with the ignition turned on.

So if any of you have tried to stop the draughts by turning the ventilation knob to recirculate and been disappointed with the results, the answer may well be that you did not have the ignition on at the time. When you know what you are listening for, it is possible to hear the motor run and the diverting flap close.

If this seems a bit stupid and obvious, I can only say that it was not obvious to me at the time, when in 2001 at the North Cape of Norway, we spent a rather cold night. I am not 100% sure as to which versions of the Transit this applies, but definitely the MK4 and 5 and probably the 6 & 7 also.

Hopefully some of you may find this useful