hows your air con?

deano1978

deano1978

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Just wandering hows everyone's air cooling is doing in this weather.
Mines not to cool on the afternoon drive.
Cooler in the morning.
 
Mines as cold as ice and I live in Cyprus, high 30s here :) Too hot to have the roof down at midday, get sunburnt lol :(
 
Mine works but has trouble when its really hot.

I noticed in vagcom my running pressure is 5 bar currently which i expect is a bit low.
Saw it while setting my B7 climate panel to learn all the climate flap positions.

Somewhere in hvac basic settings group 002 :)
 
One thing I noticed with mine a while ago, if you set the temp to LO, it will default to recirculation and can't be changed, set it to 18, or 16 if it will and it'll cool the outside air as much as possible.If its 28 outside and 38 inside the car, set on LO it will struggle and work its **** off.. Once you've got the inside temp down, then set it LO if you want it even colder..Found mines best on 18, center and footwell vents on and half fan speed.. the dark dash on mine takes some cooling too after its sat in the sun, the center vents always take a little longer to cool.
 
Mines great after having a new compressor, flaps have a mind of their own, but managed to get the centre vents on all the time.
Cobra88 can you reset the flaps on the B6?
 
mine isn't cold and stinks..........needs looking at i think:motz:
 
Ice cold and loving it! Had the system health checked and re-gassed and a new compressor pulley fitted. It's working better than ever.
 
Nice and chilly in mine after a minute since it was cleaned.

I used a cleaner in my vents that foams up and did a number of processes that I followed on instructions, and since then it has been extra chilly......I keep thinking that a vent was stuck closed before and the this clean dislodged some crap or something as it was starting to smell
 
had it serviced two weeks ago and its brill, to the point you get out the car and a wall of heat hits you. loving it
 
I just leave mine set to 23degrees auto most of the year around, A/C needs to be used or it stops working.
 
I just get in,hit auto,point centre vents towards roof and within a couple of mins it's freezing, can't normally have it on all the time as it's too cold so i do turn it on and off as the need arrises.
 
After nearly two years of my aircon not working, I replaced the pressure switch and got it regassed and to my surprise it works pretty well. One thing I notice with mine is that it doesn't get icey cold until a few miles of driving before then I would say it's cool.
 
deano1978 said:
Just wandering hows everyone's air cooling is doing in this weather.
Mines not to cool on the afternoon drive.
Cooler in the morning.
Click to expand...

Mine is much better now it's had a topup. I dont think mine has had an A/C service for a while so think it was just low, although time will tell if it has a leak.

Bought one of the valve/canister kits from Halfords. Mine was down to about 10psi with the compressor running, normal running should apparently be about 30-35psi from memory. Easy process to topup with kit which has both refigerant and oil in the canister, now blows nice and cold. Each canister holds about 450g I think which is just over half the capacity of the system @ 750g charge.

Mike.M said:
Nice and chilly in mine after a minute since it was cleaned.

I used a cleaner in my vents that foams up and did a number of processes that I followed on instructions, and since then it has been extra chilly......I keep thinking that a vent was stuck closed before and the this clean dislodged some crap or something as it was starting to smell
Click to expand...

What did foam product you use to do this Mike? I did use one of the spray tins, but stupidly changed my cabin filter afterwards.....will post a pic of the state it was in! Think I need to spray something through the cabin feed and the vents too like you suggested.

Mine takes a while on a hot day to get started, but i imagine it is all the components of the system, exchange unit in the car and the vents themselves.....not to mention the air in the cabin.....that are really hot, so to get all that down 10-15 degrees, there is quite a lot of temperature differential to exchange out.

I run mine for a short while on 'cold/low', normal A/C mode, with mid vents and footwells, then once its better in the cabin, hit the recirculation button. Gets to the point of being too cold and I have to wind the fan setting back down from about half.
 
I found out from another forum a way to stop bad smells in your air con, if you always leave your air con on cold when you leave the car you will get bacteria build up over time as there is moisture in the system and its this that casues the bad smell.

The trick is to turn it up to the highest heat setting and let that circulate for a few minutes, this leaves the system nice and dry! Do this a few times over the summer and your smells should go. Never leave your car with the air con in the lowest setting and do this periodically and your smells should go, no need to buy any of these chemical cleaners I did it with mine a few years ago and regulary give it a good blast on high and have not had this issue since!
 
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The can I got came from TPS with a long pipe to be able to spray deep into the vent pipes and works well. May give it another hit end of the month
 
Before and after with the cabin filter. Old one smelt the same as the bad smell usually from AC so did help a little......

3yvysymy.jpg
 
I find the activated carbon versions help with the smell even more and try and change them every summer while it is dry and just before winter starts, as an old one creates the condensation in the morning
 
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Mike.M said:
I find the activated carbon versions help with the smell even more and try and change them every summer while it is dry and just before winter starts, as an old one creates the condensation in the morning
Click to expand...

Don't worry yourself about this do what I said above, Ive had my car 7 years and I haven't touched my A/C its still nice and cold and doing above the smell is non existant.

I also change my pollen filter every year but they shouldn't smell like yours did Icarus83 not if you change it every year?
 
Was showing 31.5 C when I left work tonight. Put the roof down and for science I whacked my climate onto LOW and the air was cold coming out of the vents even at 65 mph. Didnt want to leave it on though so switched it off before anything got stressed.

Does this mean I have solved global warming :yahoo:
 
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Just finished fixing mine today, strung it out a bit as initially it was a broken pressure sensor, I snapped the fitting so replaced the condenser and sensor, then thought my compressor was broken so replaced the drier and found my pulley was missing the cover plate!
Saga over, for now, I'll make sure to run it once a week in the winter to keep it tip top.
 
MooLard said:
Just finished fixing mine today, strung it out a bit as initially it was a broken pressure sensor, I snapped the fitting so replaced the condenser and sensor, then thought my compressor was broken so replaced the drier and found my pulley was missing the cover plate!
Saga over, for now, I'll make sure to run it once a week in the winter to keep it tip top.
Click to expand...

Mine was exactly the same. A common fault apparently.
 
deano1978 said:
What does auto button supposed to do?
Click to expand...

Should be in the manual.

"Auto" means that it runs the fan, vents (window/dash/feet) and temperature automatically based on the temperature you ask for on the thermostat... so if it's hot weather, it will blast cold and crazy when you first get in and then settle down after it reaches the right temp. Usually best to just leave it there and tweak the thermostat around until you find the right one for you.

If you override any of those buttons, then Auto will switch off and then you have to moderate everything up and down yourself.

And Econ is ECONOMY and it's NOT German for aircon, as some numpty thought (he was b####ing about his aircon never getting cold).... ECON just means "let's see if we can save a few pennies, by turning the aircon off maybe we can still keep it cool"... not really worth using unless you're desperate as it's useful year-round: even in winter, it does a decent job of dehumidifying/demisting the car.
 
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Just had a regas and I think I nearly had ice in my beard!
 
So how does the halfords kit work,how can i tell if its low on pressure,what should pressure be? And how much can i top up?
 
You can't tell anything from the Halfords kit, it is literally a top up kit. You have no idea how much to put in and if you have a leak you don't no about its a waste of money. Just go to a proper aircon specialist they can tell you how much is in the system, if there are any leaks, they drain the system, top up to the correct level and add a dye so if you have a leak you can see it. Had mine done a couple of weeks ago for £40 (i think the Halfords kit is £30 plus £10 for the adapter).
 
BahnStormer77 said:
And Econ is ECONOMY and it's NOT German for aircon, as some numpty thought (he was b####ing about his aircon never getting cold).... ECON just means "let's see if we can save a few pennies, by turning the aircon off maybe we can still keep it cool"... not really worth using unless you're desperate as it's useful year-round: even in winter, it does a decent job of dehumidifying/demisting the car.
Click to expand...

Not to mention keeping the system running properly as the seals get lubricated.
 
Twaz said:
Just had a regas and I think I nearly had ice in my beard!
Click to expand...

The new A6 has three modes for the aircon - economy (actually still aircon, but just "gently"), intermediate and intense.... I've used in intense once, but it can pretty much give you frostbite on the back of your hands.... economy is FINE for everything up to about 30C ambient temp (so 99.9% of the time in the UK!).
 
audi upgrades
deano1978 said:
So how does the halfords kit work,how can i tell if its low on pressure,what should pressure be? And how much can i top up?
Click to expand...

The kit has a valve gun. It gives you a pressure readout and its used with the engine running so you can see the pressure the system is maintaining on load on the low-pressure side of the system.

My car was reading low, about half the PSI value it reccomended so topped it up. Now sits correctly at about 35PSI. Hasnt changed since I topped it up so evidently there are no leaks......

Used the valve on a friends A2 that had a fault: the AC cycling, cold then hot etc. His Low side pressure was in the region of 100PSI. He probably has a piece of debris in the pipework that can happen as old compressors age and break down, which acts as a decompression point (his pipework feels hot, hot, hot, hot, then cold at one spot, along the length to the bulkhead) and freezes up if there is moisture in the system potentially too, maybe hence the hot cold cycle. Probably tripping the high pressure cutout for good measure.

Useful as a faultfingding tool I guess. Was £19.99.

Will have the system serviced properly next year though in the spring mind......
 
Mike_B said:
Not to mention keeping the system running properly as the seals get lubricated.
Click to expand...

Seems I'm wrong - while researching something totally different, I came across this from back in the day:

Ian-83 said:
As for the ECON but it doesn't totally turn off the AC compressor as the compressors don't have a clutch like older AC compressors there constantly driven all the ECON button does it reduce the compressors working load down to about 5-10% as modern AC systems are designed to constantly run to keep the oil in the system moving and lubricating the seals and moving parts to reduce leakage of the system and keep it within EU limits of 4 grams of gas a year.
Click to expand...

and -

Ian-83 said:
The old style clutch compressors went out with the B5 model I think and the older a3's due to the EU laws changing. Manufactures had to rework how the systems worked to keep the system constantly pumping the gas around and carrying the lubricating oils with it to stop systems getting leaks at the joins.

I only know all this as I work for VW and recently did the training course on AC/Climate control systems and we went through all the differences.
Click to expand...
 
When I got mine it probably wasn't used for a while so when I first put it on it was poor but after running it for a hour or so it was like ice and now I run it regularly and each time I use it it get colder quicker every time so all good now
 
Got mine regassed,new sensor,worked fine,month later, now only cool air when stationery,warm when driving? Faster = warmer air,even when in neutral,at speed,still the same :-(
 
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