Does your a/c blow cold when the engine is cold?

 

I have a VRS TDi with climatronic. 

 

It was very sunny on Sunday and car was roasting when I got in, but the a/c only starting blowing cold when the engine was at 70degC and properly when up to temperature (which took ages being stuck in a hot car!) and the car had to be driven to warm it up. 
 

Wondering if a regas would improve its performance or is it working how it’s meant to?
 

Cheers!

Edited 10 May, 20224 yr by SiW80

23 minutes ago, SiW80 said:

Does your a/c blow cold when the engine is cold?

It can do, but Climatronic rarely blows Baltic or toasty on a cold engine. When was the system last regassed?

No idea - bought the car used and nothing in the documents about it being done. 
 

Does give an odd smell at times so could be running low. 

3 hours ago, KenONeill said:

It can do, but Climatronic rarely blows Baltic or toasty on a cold engine. When was the system last regassed?

Engine temperature has nothing to do with the performance of the climatronic, and the coolness of the air.
The compressor is running when the engine is running and the climatronic's A/C function is turned on.
If there is enough gas on the system, you should have baltic cold air within 30-60 seconds of starting the engine.

If you have a clogged A/C compressor solenoid valve the system can behave with symptoms like yours.

 

Other than taking your car to a specialist to flush and refill the A/C there's not much that can be done, parts of the system may need replacing to fully clear the foreign matter otherwise the operation may only be a partial success or the problem may return.

4 hours ago, mikkelvitus said:

Engine temperature has nothing to do with the performance of the climatronic, and the coolness of the air.
The compressor is running when the engine is running and the climatronic's A/C function is turned on.
If there is enough gas on the system, you should have baltic cold air within 30-60 seconds of starting the engine.

That’s what I was thinking - will try a regas

On a side note, my AC needs re-gassing yearly. Every time I tell them it has only lasted a year they say if there was a leak then the machine wouldn't re-gass it.  It works well for about 8 months every refill.

 

Any idea what likely culprits are?

O-rings on the high pressure side of the circuit.

A (cheap) UV torch will show you leakage locations if dye has ever been added, but usually you can see (PAG) oil adjacent to any seals that have leaked.   

41 minutes ago, Golf-Fiend said:

On a side note, my AC needs re-gassing yearly. Every time I tell them it has only lasted a year they say if there was a leak then the machine wouldn't re-gass it.  It works well for about 8 months every refill.

 

Any idea what likely culprits are?

The  garage that wants your repeat business, they are only putting in the minimum weight and there probably is a small leak, are they vacuuming it down and if so how long are they holding it on test at zero bar?

4 hours ago, Golf-Fiend said:

On a side note, my AC needs re-gassing yearly. Every time I tell them it has only lasted a year they say if there was a leak then the machine wouldn't re-gass it.  It works well for about 8 months every refill.

 

Any idea what likely culprits are?

Its true that the machine makes a pressure control before it regasses the circuit, but if the "hole" int the system is tiny, then the machine will not detect it.
Normally they also fill with a flouresent substance, so as stated above an uv torch could give you an idea where the gas slips out.

 

I start getting cold air within a few seconds of starting the engine on my 1.4 TSI and it was the same on my 1.9 TDI.

 

I recently had it regassed as there was no record of it being done before.

Had it regassed - it was missing 30% or so of refrigerant gas volume so hope it improves its performance. 

Something else I've just throught that you haven't mentioned is the pollen filter. When was it last changed? This can have a massive impact on air conditioning performance.

 

I remember when I bought a Seat Cordoba years back and the a/c performed poorly. Changed the pollen filter that was disgusting and hadn't been changed for years and it was blasting out icy cold air straight away.

Good point - she is due a 100k mile service soon so will ensure the pollen filter is done as well 👍