Air Conditioner Woes
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jiannichan
- Posts: 48
- Joined: Sat May 02, 2015 2:54 am
- Car: 2000 Infiniti QX4 223,xxx Miles as of 9/22/2015
Air Conditioner Woes
So it has been cold for a while and we got into the 80's recently. It is going to get cold again but only for a few days and will warm up. I haven't needed to use my a/c in a while but when I was, it worked fine. I tried to use it today since it was 75 outside and just wanted to test it out. It blew only air and wasn't cold. Got home, parked the car and tried it again, and I do NOT hear the compressor kick on. Tried replacing the fuse/relay that is in the fuse box and that didn't work. Are there any other relays/fuse anywhere else? My last Infiniti, a G20, the a/c didn't work because the ambient sensor in the front was broken (missing). I'll check that as well. I just hope it ins't the compressor that is bad. I will go over the FSM on what to check but just wanted to get a quick suggestion on simple things to look at first. Thanks in advance!
Re: Air Conditioner Woes
It's 16 years old ? with +200k on it . anything could be wrong. It may have just lost a seal and the refrigerant. I keep my systems on auto .. so the ac cycles the oil. The only way to check it to have someone gauge the system to see the level of refrigerant.
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jiannichan
- Posts: 48
- Joined: Sat May 02, 2015 2:54 am
- Car: 2000 Infiniti QX4 223,xxx Miles as of 9/22/2015
Re: Air Conditioner Woes
UPDATE:
So I was finally able to get my car to an independent shop to check out my a/c issues. I dropped it off at about 9am, and I was waiting for it since they said it'll be about 30 minutes to diagnose. So their first thought was really low refrigerant, so vacuum out the lines and put in new refrigerant with dye. 45 minutes later, they come back and said it isn't a leak and something else and will take some time to hunt down an issue with electrical. They had my car until 4pm when they called me and told me the problems. They said my climate control module is bad and that I'd needed a replacement and it'll cost $75 and my ECU also needs to be replaced. Something about the ground is bad on there and that is causing it to not send a ground signal to the compressor to tell it to kick on. Both parts and labor total will be roughly $800-900. I declined to have them fix it because that is way too high for me to shell out for a car with this many miles and that I paid little for.
My question is, does anyone know of or heard of anything where something on the ECU being bad causing it to not kick on the compressor? I think the first thing I will do is ebay a replacement cc module since that is cheap. I'll be doing my own testing to see if that is the issue. If I do need a new ECU, can I just get one from ebay for the same model/year to replace mine or is it more involved than just swapping?
Another thing, back when I had a G20, the ambient air sensor on the front of the car was missing, so it was causing an issue with the a/c not kicking on. Will a bad sensor on this car cause the compressor to not kick on as well? How often do these things fail? The part is cheap so I can just buy a new one to try out.
So I was finally able to get my car to an independent shop to check out my a/c issues. I dropped it off at about 9am, and I was waiting for it since they said it'll be about 30 minutes to diagnose. So their first thought was really low refrigerant, so vacuum out the lines and put in new refrigerant with dye. 45 minutes later, they come back and said it isn't a leak and something else and will take some time to hunt down an issue with electrical. They had my car until 4pm when they called me and told me the problems. They said my climate control module is bad and that I'd needed a replacement and it'll cost $75 and my ECU also needs to be replaced. Something about the ground is bad on there and that is causing it to not send a ground signal to the compressor to tell it to kick on. Both parts and labor total will be roughly $800-900. I declined to have them fix it because that is way too high for me to shell out for a car with this many miles and that I paid little for.
My question is, does anyone know of or heard of anything where something on the ECU being bad causing it to not kick on the compressor? I think the first thing I will do is ebay a replacement cc module since that is cheap. I'll be doing my own testing to see if that is the issue. If I do need a new ECU, can I just get one from ebay for the same model/year to replace mine or is it more involved than just swapping?
Another thing, back when I had a G20, the ambient air sensor on the front of the car was missing, so it was causing an issue with the a/c not kicking on. Will a bad sensor on this car cause the compressor to not kick on as well? How often do these things fail? The part is cheap so I can just buy a new one to try out.
Re: Air Conditioner Woes
Were you able to get the problem diagnosed after you replaced the Climate Control module?