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On Sunday, I noticed that the air conditioner on my family's 2008 Honda Odyssey was taking a little while to start cooling. About 5 minutes after I had the car started and was sitting at a stoplight, I heard a slight "click" sound & then the cool air began to flow. I figured it was a problem with the a/c compressor.
Monday, my mom drives the car & she's complaining all day that the air conditioner isn't working. She takes my car to work today and I'm stuck going to class/errands in the van. I drove to class with the windows open and when on the way back, I used the air conditioner, had it blowing the whole way. In the 19th minute, the air conditioner started cooling. Again, this doesn't seem like a "running-out-of-freon" problem, but a compressor problem, correct?
without knowing what the pressures on both sides of the system, i cant tell you if the problem is low refrigerant, or a problem in the lines, or with the compressor. its possible that the refrigerant is ok level wise, but might have gone bad, it does happen in some systems.
another issue to consider is a bad pressure sensor. that sensor tells the system how high the pressure is, so the clutch can be activated. if the sensor is bad, it wont give a proper reading of system pressure, and wont activate the system.
All science aside, low pressure is first thing to consider.
Click heard when ac kicks in is normal.
Long delay in cold air is not.
Things to check will be:
having heat turned of. Simple as it is, it's been overlooked by many.
checking fuses.
cleaning radiator. It is amazing how much ac performance may be reduced by a bunch of leaves and dead bugs on radiator fins.
Diagnostic and recharge is about $120 at a family owned ac shop. Ac can be very dangerous to DIY, keep that in mind.
I always look at the simplest solution. The connector to the AC compressor clutch could be lose or dirty. The click you heard is probability the clutch engaging.
BTW this has happened to me and all I had to do was clean the connector, spray it with contact cleaner and then reconnect it.
Soviet, check if there is a visor window built into one of the ac lines. Usually they are somewhere in front of or right next to radiator. It's a little cube with a penny size glass visor in it. It shows freon flow in the system.
Turn engine on and turn ac on. Do you see a bunch of bubbles running across the visor? That's telltale sign of low freon.
Soviet, check if there is a visor window built into one of the ac lines. Usually they are somewhere in front of or right next to radiator. It's a little cube with a penny size glass visor in it. It shows freon flow in the system.
Turn engine on and turn ac on. Do you see a bunch of bubbles running across the visor? That's telltale sign of low freon.
those were removed from automotive a/c systems a number of years ago, i think around the early 90 when the automakers switched over to R134a. the reason is that they didnt want people overfilling an R134a system and end up locking up a compressor.
those were removed from automotive a/c systems a number of years ago, i think around the early 90 when the automakers switched over to R134a. the reason is that they didnt want people overfilling an R134a system and end up locking up a compressor.
Definitely not removed on late 90s early 2000. I know as several of our "newer" cars had them.
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