Used DCCV…Keep it or throw it away?

[BCA]

Driving home from a trip to Wisconsin last week, the heater began pumping out only hot air no matter what temperature was selected.
Thinking it was the DCCV, I ordered one an installed it only to still have the same issue. After finding a 2006 service manual online I was able to go through the proper diagnostics and found that the 10 amp fuse for the DCCV was blown.

Now I am wondering if it was just an aged fuse that decided to blow or if the original DCCV went bad and cause the fuse to blow.

What would you guys do, keep the valve as a spare or just toss it?

Has anyone figured out a way to bench test a DCCV?

The car just turned 41,000 miles.

 

[joegr]

1. "Aged" fuses don't just blow. It's a 10 A fuse on a circuit that normally only takes a few amps. Your original DCCV almost certainly shorted out due to coolant leaking into the solenoid coils.

2. Toss it!

3. There's no real bench test that verifies that the valves open and close correctly and that there are no leaks. You can do electrical bench tests on the coil, but even if they pass, it doesn't prove the DCCV is good.

Measure the resistance between pins 1 of 2 of the valve. It should be 10 to 23 ohms.
Measure the resistance between pins 2 of 3 of the valve. It should be 10 to 23 ohms.
Measure the resistance between any of the pins and the metal body of the DCCV. It should measure as off-scale.

 

[BCA]

I figured as much. At first I was a little upset that I did all the work to change out the valve and then thinking it was just a fuse. But it was most likely a malfunctioning valve that caused the fuse to blow.

I'll check the resistance just for the heck of it.

Thanks for the info!