V50 General : Air Con A/C stopped working

[mybubba]

hmm.. I am a bit puzzled that the evaporator would be damaged/leak. Normally the condensor is bound to collect debris etc. And as the evaporator is situated in a housing I can see external damage being a reason.

As for the pressure monitor/switches could someone confirm that they actuate on both, high and low pressure levels?

[Lancee]

I re-iterate my earlier suggestion, "I suggest you find a good independent air con specialist and have it tested, probably just needs a re-gas, before you spend ages looking for the wrong problem.", BEFORE you spend ages looking for the wrong problem.
My local air con specialist charged £103.50 inclusive for the re-gas and a leak trace and repair last year, it still works really well this summer, alternatively procrastinate for another few months and you won't need it till next year anyway !

[mybubba]

are suggesting to take out all the fun by researching the problem and then to procrastinate ;-)

still hoping for someone to answer what the pressure switches actually do.

[Welton]

I'm affraid it's quite irresponsible to go squirting-in refrigerant gas when you don't know where the leak is. Halfords and the like selling these 'gas in a can' top up's have been heavily criticised by professional (registered) engineers who face hefty fines and criminal charges for irresponsible use of the gas. Let's be honest if your a/c isn't working then chances are you have a big enough leak for your can of gas to escape from within days if not hours.

With car a/c the biggest problem by far is the front mounted condenser (radiator) it gets all the road salts and dust and peppered with stones and eventually a leak can occur and dissable the system.

I've been through 4 condensers on my cars in the last 8 years including Japanese and French. Even the prestige cars like BMWs suffer and it all comes about at between 5 and 7 years mostly.

As far as I know the S40/V50's replacement condenser is not too bad a job.

BTW the S40/V50 runs the compressor for 10 compressor revolutions during cranking (even if you have the a/c turned off) this is to keep the oil circulated around the various seals.

The idea that a car will lose most of it's gas in 2 years is wrong. It is perfectly possible for a system to remain fully topped up with gas for many years in a quality installation.

[Welton]

There's some very informative stuff in this PDF......http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/tech/S40...ateControl.pdf

The climate control is very clever too; knowing as it does whether your windows are open and even whether the windscreen wipers are on! it's all described in the document above.

[mybubba]

bloody brilliant document! and thus contribution. thanks Welton!
I can't detect then 10 compressor cycles (no relay clicking etc) and now it may have to be a DTC check with my Volvo mates, and possibly a rethink altogether.

[JGV50]

I have had air con issues, I had it re gased at the end of last year and within a week it was not working again. I decied that i would leave it for the winter as I was not going to use it anyway and then got Volvo to re gas and check for leaks. They did not see any at first but again after a week it stopped working again and they said it was a leak in the condencer.

They wanted over £600 to replace (£200 for the part and 4 hours laber). At which point i though i would look at alternatives. Through a recomendation on this forum i tried an independent volvo garage who sugested a glue like substance that is added and seals up small holes. At £125 all in and an offer of money back if it fails again in a year i decided to get it done and over 2 weeks later its still working

TBH not very impressed as its a 07 plate car and my 52 plate golf has never had aircon issues and i had that for over 4 years!

JG

[mybubba]

General
DTCs are stored in the CCM if the CCM detects a fault. Every DTC has a counter which records the
number of operating cycles which have been fault-free since the DTC was stored. A fault which is
detected in each operating cycle is defined as permanent. A fault which is detected in not all operating
cycles is defined as intermittent.
An operating cycle is the period from when the ignition was turned on, and then on for at least 10
seconds and was finally turned off for at least 10 seconds

I guess it worth getting a readout for the dtc from my local ind volvo repairshop. Given the above it should give some clues.
Diagnostics (as they call that procedure) will come at a price probably £35 to 50.
PS: Just had a look at the VADIS dtc fault codes re climate control and although they yield approx 55 different codes only a few relate to the condenser and communication faults. I guess pinpointing a problem on the actual low/high pressure circuit will be impossible this way.

[sophierich]

Yeh, i think lancee is quite right here, had some problem with my v70 air-con this week, wouldn't work at all, fearing the worst as it was only serviced a year ago i started trawling these posts looking for some answers and came to the conclusion after much help from fellow members that spending 50 or 60 notes for another service was the smart move, i did so, and it was! 55+vat and all is as it should be. the system has a fail safe to prevent unneccasary damage so the compressor and clutch weren't doing anything at all. it's not just down to pressure, but also the volume of refridgerant in the system, when mine was checked yesterday before they serviced it there was only 60grams of refridgerant in the system when there should have been 750grams. they also said you should switch the air-con on daily to keep it all working efficiently. ask around, find out if people you know have had an air-con service, find a recommended service centre, volvo specialists aren't always the best, most of them have just jumped on the deaer price scale, you don't always get anything better or different, tried a couple of so called volvo specialists when i had an abs issue, out of them all, one was helpful when diagnosing the fault but wasn't interested in a repair, and the other did the repair and not for much money and were very helpful, you don't need to spend ****loads of dosh on these things.

[sophierich]

yip along with abs issues, volvo see to be making money out of these air-con issues to!