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After about hour driving air is cold, fans are spinning, but LOW air volume
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mmendez534
New User
Aug 9, 2007, 4:15 PM
Post #1 of 2
(1924 views)
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After about hour driving air is cold, fans are spinning, but LOW air volume
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Heres my situation,
Just bought a used car, ac was fine the few times I drove it (did not need to use it that much). Just last week went up to Atlanta, GA from Miami, left @ about 5 am. As the day progressed the ac got worse and worse. By noon it was horrible, had to have the windows down while doing 80. Heres the weird part, the fans where going great (you could definitely hear them) and the air 1 inch from grill was freezing, but there was practically no air coming out. And so you can imagine the situation!
At night or on easy driving its all ok, great temp, great volume,  , but come that highway in the middle of the day  .
Also, not sure if this might help sometimes when doing 80 or early in the morning a humid smelling fog or smoke comes out of grills but then its ok ( I dont think its smoke, doesn't smell like it or look like it)
Also, the buttons have a mind of their own, for example I have it on circulate-air and it switches by itself to outside-air, and sometimes the AC button's light goes off. I haven't really found a pattern for it, or a situation where it always happens.
Thanks for this great undertaking
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Tom Greenleaf
Ultimate Carjunky
/ Moderator
Aug 9, 2007, 9:35 PM
Post #2 of 2
(1921 views)
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Re: After about hour driving air is cold, fans are spinning, but LOW air volume
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That's consistant with evaporator icing. Means the air which has humidity is freezin up the evap enough so air can't even flow thru it well. The car is supposed to be smart enough not to allow that but at high speed the condenser is getting plenty of air and you are asking for maximum cooling no doubt so what can happen is the system is making cool too early in the system and it freezes.
That's usually caused by a low charge but don't just race out and add refrigerant. What kind of car is this? Most use a low side pressure switch to cut off the compressor when the pressure is too low at evaporator and if it doesn't cut out on time it ices up. You'll probably find that if you shut the A/C off when you first notice this for several minutes and then back on it works fine again for a while.
First take note in normal driving if you are getting water (condensate) under the car. It should do that. Bet yours doesn't.
Best thing to do is shut if off now and then for now and when you can get both high and low pressure readings on this car which can lead as to what is wrong.
Do you plan on fixing this yourself? You can rent some equipment or if you want to do your own work it will pay off to buy some stuff. Avoid the magic kits they sell everywhere as they contain products that can damage your A/C and are not very good at advising of the danger to you, or that you may really harm the system using them,
T
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