Quote:
Originally Posted by bl52krz
Not sure, but I am not sure people run the aircon properly. If you are only getting a low blowing from the aircon into the cabin, try this:- the plus and minus sign on the aircon console, press the + sign, and you will find that you get a good blast of air through the vents. As the temperature goes down, the fan inside will slow down to a steady speed.Also press the ‘little man’ to alter where the air is blown out. My aircon is set at 20deg, and stays throughout the year as such.
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Thanks, but the issue I had wasn't a low force from the aircon, rather that it was forcefully blowing hot air, because the system was trying but failing to get down to the target temp of about 20C. Normally I'd say this would mean no gas, but as the thread described it seems to only happen when the temperature the aircon is being asked to cool is very high, say about 30C + external, meaning considerably higher in the car.
In theory, there needn't be any need to adjust those settings as 'Auto' should do the trick.
As it happens I took the car on a round trip of about 150 miles yesterday in very hot conditions. Opening the rear windows to 'pull' some air through as opposed to relying on auto recirculation definitely helped (thanks Simon).
On the motorway the car was fine even with windows up, but obviously lots of air flow to the condesner and the cabin was already cooler by this point. Once we stopped in traffic at the other end of our journey we struggled again and increasingly just blew hot, but the external temp was by then reading 31.5C.
On the way home in the evening, with temperatures a bit lower externally, the aircon was 100% icy cool.
All this leads me to think it could just be extreme temps and tired, 21y.o. equipment, rather than a gas leak. I also know the only real way to tell would be to see a specialist, but as it's pretty much working in all but the most extreme conditions - slow inner city traffic with over 30C - I think that might be one that we let ride through the winter and see how we go.
Thanks again for the all the help.