I feel like I won a lottery, with my car's A/C fix...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

... yesterday!

After noticing it wasn't blowing cold air a few weeks ago, during some unusually warm afternoons after work, I bought some R-134a refrigerant and a trigger-dispenser with a pressure gauge a few days ago.

I connected the gauge, but the refrigerant pressure was too high. Then I realized the A/C's compressor wasn't even engaging!

In the meantime, my elderly neighbor lady came outside and asked what I was doing. I explained it, and expressed concern about the compressor since that's an expensive repair that I can't even afford until this upcoming Summer is over.

She said that her car's A/C has slowly gotten worse over the years, and now it blows warm air too. So I hooked up my new pressure gauge to her car, and the reading was near-zero! So I added the R-134a refrigerant -- with no additives, and the appropriate refrigerant for her car too -- to her A/C instead, using an ambient temperature chart to determine the proper PSI (to avoid overfilling). Then she squealed with joy that her A/C was "ice cold" now.

Yet my car still had some kind of compressor issue.

Yesterday, I checked all of the A/C-related fuses. They were fine.

Then I bought a $9 compressor clutch relay at a nearby auto parts store, after reading that the OEM relays in old Honda Accords often went bad.

After replacing that relay (located at the under-hood fuse box) and turning on the A/C, the car sounded different! I scurried toward the compressor and shined a light on it. It was engaged now!

Checked the refrigerant pressure after the compressor was engaged, and it's about perfect!

Then I sat inside the car again, feeling very COLD AIR blow over me!

Hallelujah! Fixed with just a $9 electronics part!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Hooray!

What a wonderful fix!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. I felt lousy yesterday, from my 4th Moderna shot...

... (second booster) on the previous day (Friday) too. A painful headache and very fatigued. No slight fever this time, though, unlike the previous three shots.

Yet the inexpensive fix made me so elated anyway!

The elderly neighbor woman -- who seems to see EVERYTHING around here, so she's like a guard dog that can talk -- came outside again too, after seeing my car's hood open again. So I rechecked the refrigerant pressure for her car as well, and it hasn't dropped at all. So her leaks must be very slow. (Her A/C was still cold, but I wanted to measure it again anyway.)

[SheltieLover]

3. Congrats!

So glad it was a quick, easy fix for you & your neighbor!

134A's patent has, or is about to expire, so it will likely be banned soon. I bought a case online, just to ensure continuity of my AC. 👍

Love your description of your neighbor! She will guard your belongings now that you fixed her AC!

If/when her refrigerant gets low again, she can buy a dye to put in the system to show where it's leaking from. Harbor Freight sells a decent vaccum pump for $150, if you need to do more extensive AC repairs. (Make sure to buy the 2-yr extended warranty, as the seals blow out sometimes.) 👍

Enjoy your cool air!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Thanks!

The local weather is expected to be quite warm in a few days, so the timing was perfect!

It's mostly the high humidity around here that makes it so uncomfortable. I took a 10-day vacation to Arizona years ago, and the contrast in humidity was blatant as soon as I stepped out of the airplane from the return flight. Back to the swamp! (That's better than going through a lengthy drought, of course.)

That old neighbor lady used to annoy me because she seemed "too nosey", but I've grown to appreciate her. Her frequent neighborhood observations never seem to be mean-spirited. Unlike me, I think she's a natural-born extrovert who gets especially lonely as a widow.

Thanks for the heads-up about R-134a! I might buy another container of it, just in case.

[SheltieLover]

5. Yw!

Humid here, too .. memphis region. Everyday near 100% humidity. 😓

Lol your neighbor. Glad to hear she isn't mean. 👍

[Best_man23]

13. I doubt R-134a will be banned anytime soon

While R-134a's use in new cars is now banned (new cars now use R-1234yf), there are millions of cars and trucks still on the road that will require R-134a refrigerant for service. What may happen is in the future, anyone looking to purchase 134a will have to show they've received training on refrigerant handing and recovery. This is similar to what took place when R-12 was banned in the 1990s. The new R-1234yf refrigerant is NOT compatible for use in R-134a systems. The reason for the switch to 1234yf is it has a much lower global warming potential than R-134a. Both 1234yf and 134a do not deplete the ozone layer, which was the chief concern with R-12.

Per the EPA website: "Servicing of existing vehicles using HFC-134a with HFC-134a will not be impacted and will continue to be allowed."

https://www.epa.gov/mvac/refrigerant-transition-environmental-impacts

So I don't think you need to rush out and buy a case of 134a. When the EPA mandated the phase-out of R-12 in the 1990s, a slew of mostly bad replacement refrigerants hit the market, which ended up biting many car owners and shops in the butt. Hopefully the EPA learned its lesson from that debacle and will not make the same mistake twice.

Speaking of R-12 refrigerant, I turned in 5 one pound cans of R-12 to a household hazmat collection site the county was running a few weeks ago. I discovered them in one of my toolboxes. When I left auto mechanics in 1995, I hoarded a couple of cases of R-12 for my cars, so that is how they came to be in my possession. Before I turned them in, I took a look at eBay Motors and was shocked to find listings for R-12 refrigerant. I was not about to give or sell them to someone I was not sure would handle this refrigerant properly.

[SheltieLover]

15. I loved R-12. Blew ice chunks!

The new refrigerants are a nightmare, imo. They do not cool as effectively & you can't just make a repair & top them off. 410A, YF, etc. Must be fully evacuated, then measured on a very sensitive scale because of the blended refrigerant.

Blends also run at much higher pressures.

Imho, the EPA is busy protecting manufacturer patents.

[twodogsbarking]

6. Cool

[multigraincracker]

7. Once again the Zen Art of car repaired has worked for me.

My 22 year old Chevy wouldn't start a little over a month ago. would just sputter a little at first, then no firing at all. We'd had some rain back then and I was just guessing a fuel problem. So, I put in a bottle of "Heat" fuel additive for a cost of 2 bucks. Nothing, waited a week and still nothing. Asked a guy down the street if he could take a look at it. He never came down. I was still expecting him to show up, so I thought I'd see if the battery needed charged up again. Hit the key and it fired. About, 15 seconds of cranking and it was running.

I know how happy you have to feel.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

9. Yes, those kinds of experiences...

... are a joy!

Thanks for sharing your story!

[multigraincracker]

11. Back in the day...

I had a Cadillac with the North Star motor. The starter wouldn't work intermittently, so I was going to put in a new starter. Looked it up and it required removing the intake manifold. I said screw it and it fixed itself over time. Go figure.

[DFW]

8. The last time my A/C didn't work was the day I picked the car up new from the dealership

The delivery day kept getting pushed back, and pushed back, and finally it was set in the middle of my trip to the USA that summer (2013). I got back at the end of August, and finally went to pick up my new car. Nice, shiny, blah, blah, and I got in to drive it home.

It must have been 40° or more in there (104° F), so I immediately looked for the AC to turn it on. Well, I got it to blow, but it felt more like exhaust from a pizza oven. When I got home, I called them and asked how I was supposed to get the thing to work. They told me, but I had done all that. They said to drive back there, and they would show me (unspoken: you stupid American idiot).

So, the stupid American idiot drove back to the dealership and they found, to their immense embarrassment, that the A/C indeed did not work. Technically, everything seemed to be working, but it was determined that it had sat around so long while I was in the USA that some computer program that was supposed to kick in had passed its time limit, and thus would not start the AC. With profuse apologies, they said they needed to keep it a day or two to re-program it (re-program it!! It's a goddam car, not the Space Shuttle!). They drove me home, and two days later, my wife drove me back there. Wonder, oh wonder, the AC worked. The salesman said it was the first time ever that he had sold a car where the A/C didn't work from day one. Lucky me.

I usually drive my cars until one of us dies (so far, it has always been the car). This time, I'm not sure who wins "Beat The Reaper." I've had this car for just about nine years, but it only has about 35,000 KM on it. I usually only drive from the house to the train station or to the airport, although in recent years, my wife has asked to take my car when she drove up north to visit her mom (2½ hours each way), or down south to visit our daughter (about 2 hours each way). Her car was 13 years old, and starting to seriously misbehave. That's when I said, time for a new one for her. We ordered it in September, were promised delivery in December. That got pushed back to February. THAT got pushed back to late April, when we actually DID pick it up. At the dealership, the salesman started showing her how it worked, and this time, I think learning how pilot the Space Shuttle would have been easier. Are all these gimmicks really necessary? Good thing we didn't order any of the fancy extras. he started fooling around with her cell phone, programming this and that into it, all connected (so he said) to the car.

Well, we have no clue what 90% of that stuff is, or how it works, but the A/C is running! You gotta take progress where you find it. In nine years, at least they have figured out how to make that work.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. Wow, what a story!

I'm glad your A/C was eventually fixed! And I know what you mean about the air seeming to be even HOTTER when the A/C isn't properly working. That's what I noticed with my car when trying to use the A/C a few weeks ago. "This is worse than simply using the interior vent fans without the A/C switched on!"

I sometimes think designers and engineers make matters worse, just to make something "new" for the latest models and thereby justify their occupations.

I was so worn out by the driver's side interior fuse box cover yesterday (plus the Moderna booster side-effects), struggling to get it back in place, that I ready at that point to just take another aspirin for my headache and go back to sleep. It was a puzzle that I finally solved after realizing that a piece of the plastic molding around the door needed pulled up to slide part of the fuse box cover underneath it. Why it was designed that way, I don't know!

When I then struggled to remove the radiator fan's relay (to temporarily put that in place of the compressor clutch relay to determine if it was faulty), I decided to simply drive to the auto parts store and buy a new relay without really knowing if the old one was bad. Which made it more of a pleasant surprise when that actually fixed the problem!

[DFW]

12. Congratulations on your luck!

The first time I looked under the hood of this thing I'm driving now, I just gave up. It looked like a prototype from the set of a Transformers movie.

[Best_man23]

14. Relays in older cars are always a good first place to look

Sometimes multiple systems use the same relay. More than once, I borrowed an A/C compressor relay to sub for a fuel pump relay that I suspected had failed.

[Demovictory9]

16. ...and fixed neighbor's car too