tdecker
04-20-2008, 12:31 PM
Hi all,
I'm having an intermittent problem with my a/c not coming on right away when I start the car for the first time of the day. Once the compressor finally does kick on, it blows very cold air, it's just that for most of the cold starts of the day, the compressor takes up to 5 minutes before it will decide to kick in. The hotter the day, the longer it seems to take. After the first drive of the day, the a/c has no issues for the remainder of the day, ie it comes on quickly and blows cold. As an experiement yesterday (a very warm day, 85degF), I started the car, turned on the a/c, and just let it idle. When I came back to the car about 15 minutes later, the a/c compressor still had not kicked on. As soon as I revved the engine some, I could start to feel the a/c cool off. Today, I had the bright idea to put an a/c recharge hose/guage on the low side port, and I witnessed the pressure drop when the compressor decides to kick on, just to illiminate any possible issues with the vents/ heat mixing. The pressure remained high on the guage for several minutes, until the compressor decided to turn on, then I saw a nice steady drop in pressure down to the normal readings for refridgerant pressure .... and of course, the air is blowing cold. I took it into the dealer several weeks ago when the problem first started to occur, but they looked at me like I was crazy or something. Of course when I took it in to them the failure wa not occurring, so I guess this is why. They fiddled some with the i-drive settings, and sent me on my way hoping this would magically fix the problem.
I need to take it back to the dealer for a more thorough diagnosis, but now I am armed with more personal information about the problem, and I would like to know if anybody in this forum has experienced a similar problem, and if so, what was the fix. Maybe I can point my dealer in the right direction. When I first took it in, they said they had never seen a complaint like this before. It sounds to me like some sort of a pressure or temp sensor/switch in the a/c system is disabling the compressor until something heats up, or comes into a certain acceptable range to enable the compressor. Please help!!!
I'm having an intermittent problem with my a/c not coming on right away when I start the car for the first time of the day. Once the compressor finally does kick on, it blows very cold air, it's just that for most of the cold starts of the day, the compressor takes up to 5 minutes before it will decide to kick in. The hotter the day, the longer it seems to take. After the first drive of the day, the a/c has no issues for the remainder of the day, ie it comes on quickly and blows cold. As an experiement yesterday (a very warm day, 85degF), I started the car, turned on the a/c, and just let it idle. When I came back to the car about 15 minutes later, the a/c compressor still had not kicked on. As soon as I revved the engine some, I could start to feel the a/c cool off. Today, I had the bright idea to put an a/c recharge hose/guage on the low side port, and I witnessed the pressure drop when the compressor decides to kick on, just to illiminate any possible issues with the vents/ heat mixing. The pressure remained high on the guage for several minutes, until the compressor decided to turn on, then I saw a nice steady drop in pressure down to the normal readings for refridgerant pressure .... and of course, the air is blowing cold. I took it into the dealer several weeks ago when the problem first started to occur, but they looked at me like I was crazy or something. Of course when I took it in to them the failure wa not occurring, so I guess this is why. They fiddled some with the i-drive settings, and sent me on my way hoping this would magically fix the problem.
I need to take it back to the dealer for a more thorough diagnosis, but now I am armed with more personal information about the problem, and I would like to know if anybody in this forum has experienced a similar problem, and if so, what was the fix. Maybe I can point my dealer in the right direction. When I first took it in, they said they had never seen a complaint like this before. It sounds to me like some sort of a pressure or temp sensor/switch in the a/c system is disabling the compressor until something heats up, or comes into a certain acceptable range to enable the compressor. Please help!!!