Soda spill on air controls in CR-V

A cup in the frontmost cup holder in my 2006 CR-V suffered a serious
loss of structural integrity, and some of the soda appears to have gone
into the controls for the air system. It has affected the fan control
and the recirculate button, in a very weird way.

There are basically now four ways it behaves.

(1) Sometimes, it is completely normal. Fan knob controls the fan, and
recirc button turns recirc on and off.

(2) Sometimes, it is like #1, except the light on the recirc button has
a faint glow when recirc is off.

(3) Once, the recirc button became "on only". That is, pressing the
button turned on recirc. Pressing it again did nothing. To turn recirc
off, I had to turn the key to off.

(4) Finally, the really weird one. The fan and recirc button become
coupled, so that each fan position has a particular behavior for the
recirc button. E.g., it might be like this:

Fan at first position: recirc is on. E.g., if recirc is off and I
turn the fan to the first position, recirc comes on. I can turn
recirc off by pressing the button.

Fan at second position: recirc is off. Can turn it on by pressing
the button.

Fan at third position: recirc is off. Pressing button does nothing.

Fan at fourth position: recirc is on. Pressing button does nothing.

....and so on, with some positions normal. Sometimes at some positions
of the fan it even is delayed: recirc comes on, but I can turn it off,
and it will stay off for a second and come back on.

On more thing I've noticed. It is usually fine right when I start,
then, if it is going to act up, starts within a couple minutes, and then
clears up after a few minutes (around the time things start to get
warm...coincidence?)

I took it in to have this looked at, but all the dealer did was run
diagnostics and look at logs, and said nothing shows up, and suggested
that it would probably get better as it dried out. They said if it did
not, they would have to replace the whole air system control panel.

If it was just a water spill, I'd guess the dealer is right, but soda
leaves a residue. Is that conductive (and possibly causing an
intermittent short)? (Or is it highly resistive, making it hard for a
switch to make contact? I'm at a loss to explain how anything could
explain the weird behavior I'm seeing--that coupling between the fan
control and the recirc seem odd).

So, I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to on purpose spill some
water on the thing, to try to wash away or at least dilute the soda
residue, if it continues to act flakey. Or is that totally insane?

If not, how long should I wait for it to clear up on its own, before
deciding that it won't and trying the water? Or is there something
better than water to use here?

(How about water, followed by some blasts of air from one of those
compressed air cleaners for electronics, to try to blow the water out?)

 

yup. unless you wanted to try to take it all apart and clean it, if
possible. a dealer isnt going to go to the effort, though.

sugar, acid, nothing thats any good.

radio shack electronic contact cleaner. spray can, with the tube on the
nozzle. stick it in to the nooks/crannies, blast away while operating
the controls. power off, of course.

also seen similar products for VCR head cleaning, electric motor
cleaning, etc.

downside? may cause plastics to haze.

if i was going to use water, id ONLY use distilled water, preferably
warm. air might work, or might force water even further in causing more
damage if power is applied before its thoroughly dried out.

on second thought, denatured alcohol/rubbing alcoholin a spray bottle
might work better in that its water-based/soluble, and dries on its own.
may also cause plastics to haze, but i would GUESS its weaker(safer)than
anything in a spray can, ie: no propellant/petroleum distillates.

 

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Mike's half right. You need a geek to help you. Remove the unit and
disassemble it. Water has to be used FIRST since aerosols won't dissolve
sugar. Wash the circuits with warm distilled water until all the sugar
and conductive chemicals are gone. Flush with pure Methyl hydrate (not
rubbing alcohol). Don't wash the lubes out of the controls. Dry with
compressed air and allow to dry in front of a fan or hot air register
for overnight.

The unit probably costs $350 bux, right?

I've done this kind of salvage work with circuit boards that were
damaged by spilled coffee, while powered up. You need to do it ASAP
before parts of the circuit get 'electrolyzed' away (my word).

'Curly'