phil.az

I recently did a trip from Phoenix to Palm Springs & back. It's 260 miles each way. On the way back the flow of air through the vents gradually dropped to almost nothing. No amount of adjustments to the controls made any difference & I could hear the blower motor running like it's supposed to. Online research shows the most likely cause of this is the condenser is freezing & blocking the flow of air. The gigantic puddle under my car in the garage after sitting for an hour confirmed it.

Anyway I took it to the dealer, told them the story, and offered a list of the 5 most likely causes. They wanted to reproduce the problem, which of course didn't happen, and I got the car back saying it's working as designed. Good grief.

Here's the list I gave them.

1) a slightly low coolant charge
2) pressure cycling switch always on (compressor runs continuously)
3) too much coolant
4) faulty expansion valve
5) clogged orifice tube

I'm going to be taking the very same trip this weekend and suspect it will happen again. In the meantime does anyone have any helpful comments? I always have the controls set to Auto & usually have to adjust the temperature to 72-73 two or three hours into the trip. Anything below that is too cold.