I have a 2003 Odyssey EX - everything was working fine up up to last year. When summer was almost at an end, the A/C suddenly failed. I pressed the ‘Auto’ button, I heard the compressor kick in and felt the slight kick/drop in rpm like normal, but after about 3-5 seconds the compressor disengaged and the engine went back to unhindered idle speed. The A/C console was still set at Auto, so i turned it off then back on, but this time there was no compressor kick in at all. At first I thought a fuse blew, but I checked them and they were all fine. I continued on my way and decided I would just turn on the fan/blower, but it didn’t work either. It didn’t matter if I set the console for auto or manual, heat or cold, when I turned the fan knob to any speed it would not turn on - with the following exception: If I turned it all the way to max and waited about 10 seconds or more, then it wold blow at full speed. Same would happen if I put it on auto and turned the temperature knob to lowest or highest temperature - after 10 seconds it would turn on the fan at max speed (since I figure consoles are programmed to go to max fan at temperature extremes to get to either one faster…)
Also of note: When I turned off the vehicle, and turned it back on at a later time, the compressor again wold kick in for 5 seconds then turn off…
…and by the way the rear fan control works just fine throughout all this.
Since the summer was over, I didn’t need the A/C and figure I would fix before the next summer. Every once in the while I would test again, and a couple of months later the A/C decided to work just fine for a whole day, but then it went back to the odd behavior
So now I’m thinking the environment console is busted and I need to replace it, except other things start to behave erratically:
First was the break release for the transmission lever. I wold press down on the break but could not hear the ‘click’ that releases the transmission lever to shift out of park. That first time I just couldn’t get it to work, so I used the emergency release on the top of the steering column, but after that I could simply pump the break or release and pump repeatedly until the click happened, usually took 3 tries. The funny thing is that this becomes consistent for about a week, and then months will pass with no problems shifting out of park, only to happen again for a week…
On some rare occasions, the interior lights don’t work they way they are supposed to: They’ll stay on when with all doors closed even when set to turn on only with open doors, or won’t turn on at all with the same setting even with a door open (rarer still, will turn on with one door, but not another). I can always just set them to remain off all the time…
Same kind of issues with the rear windows and cruise control, most times they’ll work fine, others they don’t.
The only thing I really need to work in this Texas heat is the A/C, but before I go get an expensive A/C console replacement, or have technicians accumulate hours and hours of diagnosis to figure out the problem, I wanted to know if perhaps these are all related as an electrical issue with a buss-bar or a junction box - or a short from stripped wires in the harness, loose terminals, etc.
Any suggestions? Really appreciate it…