Ive been planning on replacing my heater core since having poor heat from drivers side vents. It follows the pattern of the core clogging on that side etc and the self diagnosis for the HVAC system was fine. I've posted about it here before.

However! I noticed while driving the other day that with both temp controls all the way hot and the fan off or low, my centre dash plastic around the ashtray gets very hot. If I pull the ash tray out the plastic behind it is too hot to touch. The tray under the ashtray also gets warm. Does anyone else.notice this? Am I having an air leak from somewhere?? What are my next steps here...don't want to pull the whole dash apart for nothing.

Also of interest when I changed the interior air filter I found a lot of insulation sitting on top of it. Which would be downstream of the filter. So maybe this insulation was blown through and blocking something? I was able to get some of the centre vent panels out and reach part way in to the distribution box and found no problem. The flaps that move air from face to dash were fine. Couldn't tell much else.

Advice? Is the hot dash normal?

 

As far as I am aware that is normal. Those areas are near or where HVAC corridors are anyway. If you have your heater on that area will be hot...

 

Agree this is normal and generally it's bad practice to run the fan so low with full hot temp. When I've done that in the past, on occasion the NAV system has shut down due to heat.