No, I'm not talking about Christmas.

It's that time when you turn the key , the climatronic display is flashing , and with a weary heart realise the poxy air con has packed up. Again.

Bang on 1 year since having it gassed up. So this is more a rant than an ask for advice.

Is it me or what? Since 2007 we've owned 3 different makes of car, all with air con. Despite spending money on them, none of them , the air con that is, seem to last a month past gassing up. The air con on the 2018 vehicle I drive for work has packed up also. 

Is it just European makes of cars that have such fragile systems? A quick Google on American sites , and you get the idea they don't have the same problems, some saying they've never had problems for years with their systems.

So go on make my day. Tell me your mk1 Fabia ( mines a mk2 ) or older has working air con and you've never had a problem.

Meantime I'm off to buy a clip on fan off Amazon.........

 

Tis’ the HVAC Season | Ross-Tech Forums

Thanks Wino, Ive had a quick skim of your link, I'll have a prop read later. I know though that most of it will be beyond my feeble comprehension.

Just why is it so complicated? If we can send a rocket to Mars, surely someone can design a basic portable air con system, that can be transferred between vehicles. Can't they?  Sounding weirdly desperate now.....

14 minutes ago, Cheapas said:

surely someone can design a basic portable air con system, that can be transferred between vehicles. Can't they?

 

That had never occurred to me actually.  My experience of the standalone ones in houses is that they struggle to do much, but a car is a much smaller volume usually.

Quite power hungry though, so if all-electric it might need to be wired in as opposed to plugged into a lighter socket.

 

See if the radiator fan(s) come on shortly after asking for cooling.  

 

Also check the condition of your heat exchanger (bit in front of the radiator) for damage. If a small stone can pop a radiator, imagine what it would do for a smaller, thinner one. 

 

If you see any damage then get the system checked.

1 hour ago, Cheapas said:

Tell me your mk1 Fabia ( mines a mk2 ) or older has working air con and you've never had a problem

Well OK it's an Octavia mk1, but I've never had an AC problem in 16 years...

4 hours ago, Wino said:

 

That had never occurred to me actually.  My experience of the standalone ones in houses is that they struggle to do much, but a car is a much smaller volume usually.

Quite power hungry though, so if all-electric it might need to be wired in as opposed to plugged into a lighter socket.

 

See if the radiator fan(s) come on shortly after asking for cooling.  

 

If you look at some of the foreign hgvs pulling fridge trailers and the lads doing concert haulage  a lot of them have a slim air con unit retrospectively fitted to the cab roof. This enables them to punch through the night and sleep without the engine running during the heat of the day.

This is what I'm after , cut a hole in the roof, bang this on , happy days. And as I run my cars till they're worthless , stick it on the next one!

4 hours ago, HeavyMetalRich said:

Also check the condition of your heat exchanger (bit in front of the radiator) for damage. If a small stone can pop a radiator, imagine what it would do for a smaller, thinner one. 

 

If you see any damage then get the system checked.

Presume you mean the condenser? I'll have a look when I summon up the enthusiasm, and check the fan coming on. Changed the condenser on our Megane last year ( old one near crumbled in my hands), and the receiver dryer, so know I'm capable of that, I hope.

 

4 hours ago, KenONeill said:

Well OK it's an Octavia mk1, but I've never had an AC problem in 16 years...

 

4 hours ago, KenONeill said:

Well OK it's an Octavia mk1, but I've never had an AC problem in 16 years...

I did ask didn't I ? 

Or you've not had a problem because you've not got AC fitted?

3 hours ago, Cheapas said:

I did ask didn't I ? 

Or you've not had a problem because you've not got AC fitted?

You did, and I do.

16 years and no problems?  Got to be a record somewhere. Out of curiosity how many miles on the clock? 

Do you mean the car, or the owner?

Bit of an update. 

Did the climatronic diagnosis today. Came up 318 on left and 02 on right. 318 is the code I had last year before having it regassed. However, last year had OO on right, so not sure if 02 indicates 2 faults.

With the engine running and air con selected the rad fan is not kicking in, can't see any secondary fan.

Press the Auto button and blower in car kicks in full blast, starts at 22°. Dial the temp down to low and the Auto icon on display disappear. 

Why does the Auto icon disappear on low setting?

Found a couple of inspection panels , condenser looks in good nick with no obvious damage/ signs of leaks.

Sprayed some liquid on the refill valves, no air bubbles .

Compressor is turning , can't actually see if the middle/ clutch? is cutting in out .

Can't see any obvious signs of  leaks anywhere.

Presume next thing would be pressure/ dye test presuming the gas has gone. 

Any ideas please?

 

No clutch on these, so everything you can see at the pulley end of the compressor should be turning as one.  

Thanks Wino, funny enough just reading some advice you gave to MRGF a while back over the same prob. 

You advised him how to test fan operation, mine is same car but 08 plate. Would that be the same trick?

Probably, but you'd have to remind me/link me to what I said. 

Hi Wino, you posted this:

I can help you to check out the fan operation if you want. First thing to look at is the fuses on top of the battery. Strip fuse 6 (50 Amp) does the high speed fan operation on your car I think - assuming it was built after May 2008 -, and blade fuse 8 (30 Amp) does low speed.

 

If both are intact, you can try triggering each speed via the radiator thermoswitch connector to see whether they both work. With ignition switched on, link pin 1(brown wire) of the thermoswitch loom connector to pin 2 (brown/blue wire) for low speed operation, and to pin 3 (brown/green wire) for high speed.

 

Edited 2 August

 

 

 

What year is your car? Just so I can double check that that is all correct for yours.

Edited 9 June, 20214 yr by Wino

First registered 30/05/2008 

Engine number in log book is BMS 112808

Thanks

Yep should be the same then.

Don't actually need ignition on to test the low speed (when you link brown to brown/blue), but you will for the high speed.

Ok , thanks Wino,  appreciate your time in sorting advice. I'll have a go tomorrow. Annoyingly was stuck in massive jam yesterday, 1 hour to do 5 miles, so presume fan would have come on if working.  So annoying car doesn't have temperature guage.

1 hour ago, Cheapas said:

So annoying car doesn't have temperature guage

You reckon? Mine "has" a temperature gauge, but it reads below 50C, and above 105C, but between those water temperatures it always reads 88C.

Had this argument somewhere else on here. Point is, in the crowded south east where I commute, and particularly around the poxy Dartford Xing , on a hot day like yesterday stuck in near stationery traffic for an hour , would presume the temperature guage would creep up. Hopefully then if the fan is working I'd notice it kick in and the guage needle stabalise. This has been my experience on other diesel cars that didn't consider said guage a waste of space. Also granted on diesels does take awhile for guage to start rising , but thanks to Highways England in my part of the world it's a regular occurrence . 

See by your location that maybe your not stuck in traffic regularly, lucky you !

What Ken meant was that the temperature gauge when fitted is useless, it conveys no information other than cold, normal or hot.

16 minutes ago, sepulchrave said:

What Ken meant was that the temperature gauge when fitted is useless, it conveys no information other than cold, normal or hot.

Is this a Skoda thing then across all their cars? 

1 hour ago, Cheapas said:

Is this a Skoda thing then across all their cars? 

Across VAG. BTW I've experienced "Cold Norm Hot" lights on other makes, and they were also useless, because by the time they went Hot the fan had kicked in at high.

6 hours ago, sepulchrave said: