Heater fan motor power reduction after start - why???

Depending on the age of the motor it could be a number of things going wrong with it. Could be the brushes wearing down, or it could need cleaning and oiling. The fan motor on my Escape started slowing and making a humming sound, and it was the shaft bearings starting to dry out and gum up. Sprayed it with some cleaner (I think it was a can of old carb cleaner I had), re-oiled them, and put it back in. Worked fine then. One of the bearings was easy to get to, but the other was a bear- the fan doesn't come apart easily, and I didn't want take a chance of breaking one of the tabs.

Good luck!

SC Tom

P,S.- Depending on your make and model, replacement motors can be found for as little as $15-$20. Unfortunately, the Escape motor was $60, so I decided to try the cleaning method first.

Thanks SC Tom. I'll give that a try to see if it works. I'll let you know. The car is a Ford Focus 2003, btw.

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Looks like a winding is partly shorting out from the heat generated by the motor. If you are handy with magnet wire, you may be able to rewind the armature using the same gauge & number of turns of wire per pole. Most use permanent field magnets so that won't affect anything.

Your car is a 2003 Ford Focus. On my 2003 Ford Taurus I replaced the resistor assembly and the heater motor. While at the dealership to buy the parts one of the service people mentioned there is a retro fit kit for the windshield molding to keep rain water out of the heater system. I guess when the windshield molding warps it lets water get on the heater motor and resistor assembly. The retro fit drains the water differently.