I noticed the other day that when I kicked the defrost on, the car didn't make the slight A/C noise or bog down when the A/C usually kicks on. So yesterday it was warm enough to run A/C, same thing. I turn it on and the A/C light turns on, but nothing...the compressor isn't turning on.



What are the troubleshooting steps to check this problem out? Check fuses, voltage to the compressor, then what?

 

When was the last time you got an A/C recharge?

 

If the pressure gets to low the system will shut down to protect the compressor. If it has pressure I would go after the relay.

 

I've owned it 2 years and have never recharged it. It's got 160k on it...probably all factory parts. I have a refill can with a pressure gauge. I can check it out. Anybody have details on where to hook up and what the pressure should be? Thanks guys

 

Find a local shop offering free a/c checkups.

 

I've called a few and they just want to charge me a fee to check it out. Would rather try myself first...just don't have a shop manual. I'll poke around tonight to see.

 

Well, turns out it was just a massive crack/leak in the radiator. My coolant reservoir was dry. There's a big crack on top of the radiator, on the plastic part. I'll have a new radiator in her tomorrow. Luckily it doesn't overheat at all, even with a dry collant reservoir! But I'll keep the reservoir full in between drives until the radiator gets here.



So I'm guessing there's some sort of sensor that turns off the A/C when the coolant level is low? Because once I filled up the coolant, the A/C worked again.

 

One would hope so, but I don't remember seeing one on my car. Certainly it won't run the a/c when the engine is overheating - the a/c controls are hooked into the engine controls. If you didn't see the temperature "gauge" rising at all, you might want to test your temperature sensor and gauge also.

 

I was checking with the torque app too. Always around 178 plus or minus a few. How do you check the temperature sensor for proper operation?



Radiator will be here tomorrow. Hopefully that should be an easy enough swap out. On this car do you have to bleed the system after the coolant drain and refill? Just idle the car with the radiator cap off continually adding coolant until full?

 

I misread earlier - was thinking the whole radiator was dry vs. overflow/reservoir. If it's cracked on the top of the radiator it might not build/hold pressure and work optimally-well but you could still have plenty of cooling capacity to keep from overheating in the right conditions.



You have to 'burp' the system a little, squeezing the upper hose to let the air out. Easy enough to do while idling with the cap off and refilling the radiator as the level drops. I kinda wish we had a filler neck that let you look straight at the core to see the water level, but oh well.