Air Con - Help?

azzeretti

I have a car with A/C and Climate Control. At the moment the system seems to work i.e the lights come on, the blower changes when its turned on etc. The problem is that it doesn't seem to blow out at a cool enough tempeture. It is cold, but not as cold as I expected it would be. I have two questions really,
1) Is the tempeture of the outcoming Air relative to the outside tempeture e.g if its 12 degrees outside and I have the Air Con on at 16 degrees should the air feel slightly warm?
2) Is there some "coolant" that needs to be added to Air Con systems regularly? Could this be a problem?

Ta.

gyppo

You would need to give a bit more info wrt the cars age.
AC systems on cars need to be recharged (freon gas, afaik) periodically, and this is a main dealer job.

With a properly working AC system, cold should be just that - icy cold.

Some AC / Climate systems will not work if the outside temp is below a certain level, eg 0 to 3 degrees C.

Anan1

As Gyppo says, a/c needs to be regassed periodically. I tend to do mine every two years. A main dealer can do the job, but will charge you an arm and a leg. I have an air conditioning specialist I use in Tallaght, he works from home and charges around €60 cash for the job. Takes around 20 minutes. I can dig out his name & number if you want.

azzeretti

Anan1 wrote:

As Gyppo says, a/c needs to be regassed periodically. I tend to do mine every two years. A main dealer can do the job, but will charge you an arm and a leg. I have an air conditioning specialist I use in Tallaght, he works from home and charges around €60 cash for the job. Takes around 20 minutes. I can dig out his name & number if you want.

Its an 04 car but still under manufacture and dealers warranty. Would this be covered or is the coolant considered a "comsumable". Either way, if you could PM the guys number I might give him a shout!
thanks

Anan1

azzeretti wrote:

Its an 04 car but still under manufacture and dealers warranty. Would this be covered or is the coolant considered a "comsumable". Either way, if you could PM the guys number I might give him a shout!
thanks

I'd say it might be covered under warranty. If I were you, I'd give the garage you bought it from a shout first. I'll PM you the guy's number anyway. He's very good and quite reasonable.

Guy:Incognito

I couldnt get hat number off you aswell anan? It'll come in handy.


When it needs to be regassed does that affect the hot and cold, ie if its not blowing enough eat, could that be the problem?

Anan1

Stekelly wrote:

I couldnt get hat number off you aswell anan? It'll come in handy.


When it needs to be regassed does that affect the hot and cold, ie if its not blowing enough eat, could that be the problem?

No worries, I'll post it here. Bit of a mental block going on at the moment, but it will come back to me.;) No, even if your aircon requires regassing, the heater should work the same. Do you have full climate, or manual a/c?

Anan1

Right, his name's John Kenealy and his number is 087-2559706

Guy:Incognito

Its the digital dual climate control in the safrane. It might be just me tho . I only noticed it when I was in the passenger seat while my cousin was havign a test drive. I'm not a big fan of heat anyway but noticed it was blowign fairly cold.

Alun

azzeretti wrote:

I have a car with A/C and Climate Control. At the moment the system seems to work i.e the lights come on, the blower changes when its turned on etc. The problem is that it doesn't seem to blow out at a cool enough tempeture. It is cold, but not as cold as I expected it would be.

I've only ever had one car (a VW Bora 2.3 V5) with Climate Control as opposed to manual A/C, but I did notice that it didn't seem to blast out as cold air as the manual a/c's I was used to. But then again, maybe that's right? It is, after all, trying to maintain a constant temperature in the cabin and maybe the best way of doing that is to constantly pump it full of just cool air just below the temperature it's supposed to be, rather than freezing your balls off every 5 minutes with a freezing cold blast and then switching off. Most Climate Controls also have a 'manual' mode as well, try that and see if it's cold enough then, that'll tell you if there's anything wrong with the basic a/c part of the system.

AMurphy

azzeretti wrote:

Its an 04 car but still under manufacture and dealers warranty. Would this be covered or is the coolant considered a "comsumable". Either way, if you could PM the guys number I might give him a shout!
thanks

Teh "Freon", or new Ozone Friendly version which is not Freon, is not a consumable. it's a sealed system and should stay so, just like your house fridge.
I have never had to recharge mine since 89, and no lacking in performance either.

It is easy to check if it needs replacement or not.
If it does, you have a pretty fast leak and shoudl have it tested for leaks. To do this a dye marker is added and then the system checked for leaking traces of the stuff.

That aside, it is possible for the system not to work, even if fully charged.

There are temp and pressure sensors in the system that can malfunction.
the compressor belt can slip and you not notice. The compressor clutch can slip, The interior CC Computer can go on the blink.
(Brain Freeze of the Climate Controller is quiet common on our van system, to reset it takes a buttom pressing sequence and it re-sets and recalibrates itself, till it happens again. right PITB if you have to go to a garage to re-set it every time it goes out... bit like re-programming the pre-sets in your radio, when you know how.)

Either way, you are under warranty, so I'd take it back to the dealer first.