Any vehicle A/C experts?

Wife's 2010 Toyota Highlander A/C has been acting up. For a while it was getting warmer and warmer and for some reason the right side of the vehicle was blowing colder air than the left side. Thought it might have been the blend door for the dual-zone climate control, but even then it never really got cold regardless.

Read somewhere that this could be a sign of low refrigerant, so picked up some, charged it, and it was immediately ice cold all over. However, within a couple days it is right back to where it was.

Local lube shop did their basic diagnosis (whatever that means) and think everything looks fine, but obviously something is amiss.

Before I take it to the stealership, any advice or things I can check?

Needless to say, Florida summers are NOT the time to have your better-half's A/C go on the fritz.......

 

Where in Florida?

 

Sounds like a leak somewhere. Toyotas are weird when the refrigerant gets low in that they’ll cool one side better than the other.

Check the condenser in the front of the car and every A/C line joint you can find for signs of fine dirt accumulating. That’ll be a sure sign of a leak and it’s location.

 

Space Coast. Melbourne/Palm Bay region.

 

If you were around Orlando I would send you to my friend’s shop, he would get you squared away.

 

That's what I have been thinking, but will it quickly leak to a certain point and then taper off? Like I said, the right side is quite a bit cooler than the left. From the technical descriptions I've found online, this is what they say about this phenomenon:

Technical Reason: The evaporator (the radiator-like assembly in the HVAC box) has it's expansion valve on the passenger's side. That's the entry point for the compressed freon. Some amount of liquid freon should make it 90+% across the width of this unit before picking up enough heat to evaporate back into a gas. That's what cools the air that's being directed towards the split plenum that feeds the right & right center vent, and the left & left center vent.

If the FC-134a charge is low and not enough liquid passes thru the expansion valve it may all be phase converted ('used up') before making it much past 50% of the total distance of the fins. In this case the right side of the evaporator will be cold, but the drivers side of the assembly will be essentially unused and only cool at best.

 

Appreciate the offer. If I could survive the drive without dying of dehydration, I might have thought about it.....

 

It's low on refrigerant. Honestly one of the best ways to find a small leak is to take it to someone that has an A.C. machine, recover the system, add dye to it and recharge. Run it for awhile or until it blows warm again, check for leaks using a black light and yellow tinted glasses.

I work for a dealership and thanks the quickest and most efficient way to find leaks. Also make sure to check the heater box drain for signs of dye (most likely an evaporater).

From working at a dealer for almost 15 years most A.C. issues are either a condenser or evaporator. This is just my experience, not saying true for all vehicles, but I average about 2 or 3 of these components a week.

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More than compressors?

 

Word of advice for everyone if you don't clean debris (leaves, pine needles etc) from your cowl screen heater/ac box air intake you will sooner than later have to replace ac evaporator. That debris when accumulated down by the evaporator when start to rot due to being wet I guess becomes acidic and eat through aluminum evaporator core. 10 years working on Jeeps I replaced ton of them due to this issue.

 

More than likely your compressor's seals are shot. Seems a little young but it is what it is.
Price around for a NEW compressor, dryer, refrigerant and labor.

Your looking at $750 give or take. Rockauto has a kit for 330 minus dryer which isn't bad.

 

Just replaced the blower in my wife’s Sequoia. Apparently they go out regularly. Just a thought.

 

From what I have done, yes, but I'm limited to mostly German cars.

Again this is just my experience, usually the reason I'm replacing a compressor is due to clutch failure and not leaks. Not saying it doesn't happen though

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Pain in the rear with the newer Volkswagons that use a clutch-less compressor, and there is just a proportioning valve inside the compressor body that opens up wide (instead of a clutch disengaging). The valve frequently fails but a VW dealer will not replace it, they just do the whole compressor.

I've had 2 of them go, and I just buy the new valve for $27 online, take it to a shop to evac the system for me, then I change the valve in the parking lot, and they take the car back in and push the freeon back.

 

Does it have "rear" air? We see issues with that up here due to the salt in the winter, not sure you'd see that much in your area, but any place for a leak to happen will. If it doesn't already have it in, like said, get some leak detection dye put in. Some leaks are very small or only leak during operation. In WI, by law we have to use an electronic detector over the entire system. Most just throw dye in it and leak check it after 30mins of running. Some leaks are easy as pie to find, some are pain in the asses and the customer just comes in every year to get it checked and is good for the rest of it after refilling it and not finding anything. Yours should be easy to find if it's leaking down that fast.

Ps- yes dual zones can be affected, have seen heater cores do the same thing, heat on one side but not the other, lots of Chrysler like this.

 

I’m just west of Sanford in Sorrento, if you can get up to my shop I’d be happy to put some dye in there for you to help locate the leak you seem to have.
I’d first do a really good visual check of all the fittings looking for evidence of any oily residue, a sure sign of leakage.
Look especially where the lines go into the compressor, where they go into the firewall and anywhere there’s a fitting.
Pat Mooney.

 

I get to replace the compressor, accumulator, and O-tube on my van this week. The a/c hasn't worked since sometime before I got it 18 months ago.

I'm hoping the temperature will be below 90 by Saturday.

 

Take of the 2 caps off the ports. There is a large one and a smaller one. See if they are wet on the inside of cap. 2 of my buddys had the same issue ths week, leaking shrader valves. A simple and cheap fix.
gl

 

For anybody interested, it was the evaporator core that was leaking. This also explained why there was a slightly musty smell to the conditioned air over the last 6 months or so.

Unfortunately the repair meant that the whole dash had to come out to replace, so the labor charges required some lube, but at least it's fixed and the better-half is happy again.......

 

I have to tear into my old hunting truck and see if my evaporator is the issue too. Cant find dye anywhere apparent.