Last fall my A/C gradually stopped blowing cool air. Also, the VSA warning light and triangle/exclamation point light started coming on intermittently. When the VSA light comes on the cruise control will kick off immediately, the dash gauges will flicker, and back when the A/C was blowing cold, when the VSA light would come on it would stop blowing cold and a warm, humid air would come out. If I pulled over and turned the car off, waited a few seconds and then restarted, the VSA light would go off and everything was back to normal. Over the winter I didn’t have any issues with the VSA light but this spring, as temps have gone above 40-45 degrees the VSA light has started coming back on.
Any thoughts on what the problem(s) might be? Are the A/C and VSA related or is it just coincidence? Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated. I’m
Do you park it outside? Could be wiring being eaten by rodents.
The VSA light is often caused by a faulty brake light switch, but that shouldn’t be making your gauge lights flicker. That clue makes it sound like there’s intermittent connection with wiring.
It’s possible that your battery is bad and isn’t putting out proper voltage, which is making the electricals go haywire. That could also explain the AC problem because the TL uses a temperature sensor to determine how much AC to enable. If the temperature sensor thinks it’s cold in the cabin, then the AC won’t blow cold.
Try this: Hit the voice command button and say “climate control max cold.” That tells the car to ignore the temperature sensor and just blow cold air as hard as it can. If it blows cold, you know the AC system is fine, and the temperature sensor isn’t reading right, which then coupling that with the other electrical gremlins tells you to look at the wires and the battery voltage.
I park it in my garage. Last summer I disconnected the hands free module because it went bad and would kill a battery if I didn’t start my car over a long weekend. It has a new-ish battery and it tests out ok. I agree with you though that it seems like an electrical issue.
Oh man i have the exact same issue and I’m trying to figure it out myself! I’ve tried to get the ac fixed several times and it would work sometimes then it would start blowing hot air with the vsa lights on.
I read around that it could be a brake light switch that needs to be replaced. I’m going to try that as that seems to be a cheap easy solution