by ICE_BM » Mon Feb 12, 2024 12:20 pm
Hijacking this old thread, seems to be a good place to follow-on from:
(mine MY08 3RB)
Does anyone know if the diagnostic modes can show the evaporator coil temperature, or some other way to see this via OBD2?
Agree with the above posts (and many other refs) that the drivers side vents run hotter than the passenger side (I have dual zone system).
I have done the "maintenance" on the blend door actuators, which can be confused for the water gurgling noise. The driver side actuator is quite painful to access.
The gurgling noise is the actuator "searching" for position, and while it is behaving like this the AC does not work too well.
While watching the actuators work after refitting, I observed that the only way to get the blend door to go to fully cold position is to set the temp control to 18 (minimum), as soon as you go 18.5 the actuator moves off the end stop, which mixes ion some warm air.
Note that there is only one evaporator coil (the source of coldness), so my dumbed-down analysis is that if the passenger side is colder, then hot air is leaking past some flap that should be fully closed.
Now, my system might actually need regassing, but if I can read the evap coil temperature I will have a good idea if that part of the system is good or below par.
Don't need to spend money on AC service if the problem is actually the air mixing system inside the car.
Any tips or advice on this would be gratefully received, as it sounds like a pretty common problem.
PS: anyone without the rear seat air vents should not feel like they are missing out, I have them and they are without doubt the biggest waste of space, I can blow harder than those vents with my mouth... the pissy little tubes that run through the console are also picking up plenty of heat from the tunnel making them even less effective.