FiveSeven
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- #1
As the summer is starting to heat up, there's nothing more frustrating than having your A/C all of a sudden blow warm air on you.
After rummaging through many posts on this forum, it seems very few people had a similar symptom but never replied back if they got their problems resolved. There were many posts regarding the HVAC blend door, but mine was not the problem. Here's succinct write-up to explain my situation, so you don't have to waste time figuring out yours.
SYMPTOM: On my way to the grocery store the A/C was working perfectly fine. After shopping and leaving the parking lot, I turned on my A/C. I smelled something funny, but not enough for me pull my truck over. My windows were still open and there were other cars around me, so I assumed it was another car. As I was waiting for the red light, I noticed my A/C was just not getting cold. It was still blowing warm air (not hot-- very important indicator to diagnose your blend door). After waiting for some time for my A/C to kick on, and brewing some monkey butt soup, I assumed at that point, my A/C had failed.
DIAGNOSIS:
1.) Blend door- NOTE: I have an XL trim truck, so my HVAC system is very basic. If you have dual climate control you may need to go through other steps. Mine was very straight forward. When I got home, I put my temperature all the way to hot. It was blowing REALLY hot air-- no clicking noises. Then I turned my knob to cold (being careful not to enable MAX and kicking on the A/C) and it was blowing warm air, but not the obscenely hot air-- no clicking noises. Because there was a temperature difference and no clicking noises, I can safely say my blend door is working fine.
2.) Listen for compressor and clutch after hitting the A/C button. The compressor is at the bottom left in front of the engine. Look to see if the clutch is engaging after pressing your A/C button and everything set to MAX. Mine was not...oddly enough mine did not make squealing noises or anything of that nature like my Tacoma did after its clutch failed.
3.) Relays and Fuses: The horn relay and the A/C compressor relay use the same type. Without swapping anything, I honked the horn (works), then swapped A/C clutch relay with the horn relay, then honked the horn again-- works. RELAYS are OK. Check A/C compressor FUSE (in my truck it was just above the relays); no signs of shorting on the 10amp fuse-- FUSE is OK.
3.) AC low side Pressure check: This line is easily located right next to the firewall about 12" to the left of the master cylinder when looking straight on from the front of the truck. I thankfully had an A/C pressure gauge (these are usually about $20 or so). Hooked up the pressure gauge to low side port, turned the truck on (not enabling A/C yet) and got a reading of about 110PSI. This pressure SHOULD DROP to about 30-55 psi or so once the compressor kicks on. Turned on A/C to max, pressure did not drop. Tried my best to listen to the clutch still no go.
At that point this was a job I did not want to tackle. I took it to a friend of mine who has a repair shop. He confirmed that after pressing the A/C button, the clutch was just "kinda wobbling in place" not doing anything.
Good news is that its not the blend door and there's no leak, but it's still an expensive as F* repair. Dealer wanted ~$1500 and could not get me in until July 29. My friend quoted $900 parts & labor and can get me in this week.
If there's other issues, I will update this post once the new compressor & clutch gets installed.
I would not expect an A/C clutch/compressor to fail so early at 77k miles. Since I live in the north east, does anyone know if the A/C is something we should engage for moment of time throughout the year so we don't get failure like this? Is this a common issue? Kind of frustrated that I'm dealing with this for a relatively new truck.
UPDATE: I want to thank everyone who responded and genuinely looking out to get a correct thorough diagnosis. After reading some of the responses (and watching this to kind of guide me through this), I added all the relevant PIDs to Forscan to check ambient temp sensors, engaging the fan, clutch (would not manually engage), evap sensors, all pressures were at correct levels (without running the compressor). In the end, all the PIDs that show "stop clutch from engaging due to a fault" (there were about ~20 of them) were OK and all the other temp sensors from the evap and ambient sensors were reading OK. I checked the voltage powering the compressor, that was OK. At that point I gave up, returned to my mechanic and went ahead and had them replace the compressor, clutch, and recharge the system. The AC is now working.
TL;DR: I had my shop replace the compressor, clutch, and recharged the system. This was not a DIY job for me, just take your truck into a trusted A/C repair shop who can properly diagnose this. I did not realize the compexity of this sytem until people started chiming in and me digging a little deeper. I wish I had better news for people who have A/C issues.
After rummaging through many posts on this forum, it seems very few people had a similar symptom but never replied back if they got their problems resolved. There were many posts regarding the HVAC blend door, but mine was not the problem. Here's succinct write-up to explain my situation, so you don't have to waste time figuring out yours.
SYMPTOM: On my way to the grocery store the A/C was working perfectly fine. After shopping and leaving the parking lot, I turned on my A/C. I smelled something funny, but not enough for me pull my truck over. My windows were still open and there were other cars around me, so I assumed it was another car. As I was waiting for the red light, I noticed my A/C was just not getting cold. It was still blowing warm air (not hot-- very important indicator to diagnose your blend door). After waiting for some time for my A/C to kick on, and brewing some monkey butt soup, I assumed at that point, my A/C had failed.
DIAGNOSIS:
1.) Blend door- NOTE: I have an XL trim truck, so my HVAC system is very basic. If you have dual climate control you may need to go through other steps. Mine was very straight forward. When I got home, I put my temperature all the way to hot. It was blowing REALLY hot air-- no clicking noises. Then I turned my knob to cold (being careful not to enable MAX and kicking on the A/C) and it was blowing warm air, but not the obscenely hot air-- no clicking noises. Because there was a temperature difference and no clicking noises, I can safely say my blend door is working fine.
2.) Listen for compressor and clutch after hitting the A/C button. The compressor is at the bottom left in front of the engine. Look to see if the clutch is engaging after pressing your A/C button and everything set to MAX. Mine was not...oddly enough mine did not make squealing noises or anything of that nature like my Tacoma did after its clutch failed.
3.) Relays and Fuses: The horn relay and the A/C compressor relay use the same type. Without swapping anything, I honked the horn (works), then swapped A/C clutch relay with the horn relay, then honked the horn again-- works. RELAYS are OK. Check A/C compressor FUSE (in my truck it was just above the relays); no signs of shorting on the 10amp fuse-- FUSE is OK.
3.) AC low side Pressure check: This line is easily located right next to the firewall about 12" to the left of the master cylinder when looking straight on from the front of the truck. I thankfully had an A/C pressure gauge (these are usually about $20 or so). Hooked up the pressure gauge to low side port, turned the truck on (not enabling A/C yet) and got a reading of about 110PSI. This pressure SHOULD DROP to about 30-55 psi or so once the compressor kicks on. Turned on A/C to max, pressure did not drop. Tried my best to listen to the clutch still no go.
At that point this was a job I did not want to tackle. I took it to a friend of mine who has a repair shop. He confirmed that after pressing the A/C button, the clutch was just "kinda wobbling in place" not doing anything.
Good news is that its not the blend door and there's no leak, but it's still an expensive as F* repair. Dealer wanted ~$1500 and could not get me in until July 29. My friend quoted $900 parts & labor and can get me in this week.
If there's other issues, I will update this post once the new compressor & clutch gets installed.
I would not expect an A/C clutch/compressor to fail so early at 77k miles. Since I live in the north east, does anyone know if the A/C is something we should engage for moment of time throughout the year so we don't get failure like this? Is this a common issue? Kind of frustrated that I'm dealing with this for a relatively new truck.
UPDATE: I want to thank everyone who responded and genuinely looking out to get a correct thorough diagnosis. After reading some of the responses (and watching this to kind of guide me through this), I added all the relevant PIDs to Forscan to check ambient temp sensors, engaging the fan, clutch (would not manually engage), evap sensors, all pressures were at correct levels (without running the compressor). In the end, all the PIDs that show "stop clutch from engaging due to a fault" (there were about ~20 of them) were OK and all the other temp sensors from the evap and ambient sensors were reading OK. I checked the voltage powering the compressor, that was OK. At that point I gave up, returned to my mechanic and went ahead and had them replace the compressor, clutch, and recharge the system. The AC is now working.
TL;DR: I had my shop replace the compressor, clutch, and recharged the system. This was not a DIY job for me, just take your truck into a trusted A/C repair shop who can properly diagnose this. I did not realize the compexity of this sytem until people started chiming in and me digging a little deeper. I wish I had better news for people who have A/C issues.
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