I have a 2009 F150. I don’t mean to sound like such a spoiled American, but the A/C in there is just not overpowering at all. Every vehicle I’ve owned before this has always cooled off to the point of me having to dail back the fan after a few miles of driving. In this truck, I very rarely see that type of performance. At first, I thought it may need charging, but I did a little reading online, and I saw that it seems to be a pretty common complaint among 2009 thru 2014 F150 owners. It works, don’t get me wrong. It just only works enough that I can’t justify taking it to an A/C guy yet.
One thing I’ve noticed under the hood is that the aluminum tubing from the condenser to the evaporator is not insulated. I read one post from a guy that said it would help to wrap it up. It’s insulated on my central A/C in my house, so that makes sense.
I also want to get your opinion on severing the hoses the run to and from my heater core and installing valves so that I can cut the flow of hot antifreeze to my heater core. Grandpaw swore by this.
“One thing I’ve noticed under the hood is that the aluminum tubing from the condenser to the evaporator is not insulated. I read one post from a guy that said it would help to wrap it up.”
As far as I know, you won’t find any car with that line insulated
Whoever told you to insulate it, don’t listen to him anymore
“I also want to get your opinion on severing the hoses the run to and from my heater core and installing valves so that I can cut the flow of hot antifreeze to my heater core. Grandpaw swore by this”
Don’t do that
I won’t bother explaining why you shouldn’t
Don’t take this the wrong way, please . . .
But you certainly have picked an appropriate user name
It scared me to think about the fact that my engine obviously uses the heater core as part of it’s cooling system.
Semi trucks have valves on their heater core lines. I actually put some on an old 7.3L diesel I had, and it didn’t hurt anything on that, but that doesn’t mean %$#@, really.
Not to sound like a 4 yr old asking why over and over, but what is the big no-no on the insulation about?
If you want your AC to work better, make the evaporator work better. Take a look at you radiator and fan situation. I’d guess engine driven fan, evap core right out front with no electric booster, same as my GM truck. Measure for how big a diameter an electric fan you can mount right to the face of the evap core without hitting anything. Go to ebay or the auto parts store or wherever you buy parts. Buy a fan and a relay to drive the fan, mount it to the evap core with those thru-the-core plastic bits. Find the AC relay and figure out which wire goes hot when the AC is commanded. Wire the relay with a line to tapped off that to energize it and a fused tap to a battery or ignition hot terminal and ground. Wire the fan so it pushes air into the evap core to help the engine fan. Every time the AC is on, the booster fan runs. The truck will cool better overall and work WAY better in stop-an-go-traffic. I did this after I moved to Florida, worked great.
Check the condenser in front of the radiator for debris.
If there’s a lot of debris on the condenser restricting air flow, the condenser can’t release the heat from the refrigerant and this effects the AC’s performance.
If the condenser is clear of debris, then a set of gauges should be connected to determine if the AC system is properly charged with refrigerant.
Don’t mess with the heater hoses. There’s a blend door in HVAC system that prevents heated air from entering the passenger cabin when the controls are set to cold.
With A/C issues a set of gauges need to be put on there to get a feel for what’s going on inside the system. At 7 years of age it could be that the system has lost a little refrigerant and nothing more serious than that.
Forget cutting off coolant to the heater core. You’re better off letting it circulate instead of sitting there going stagnant.
What should be done is to flush the coolant system now and then and replace the coolant. That can help prevent heater core problems due to electrolysis and so on.
That line from the condenser to the evaporator is hot or warm. You do not want to retain any more heat in it by insulating it. Expansion valves or evaporator outlets are sometimes insulated but for different reasons.
The first thing is to get the AC system tested by a pro auto AC shop.
After that – assuming this vehicle has no coolant shut off valve to the heater core – I’ll be a contrarian, at least on the idea of bypassing the heater core during the summer. I think it is worth a test. As a test, I’d be inclined to remove the hoses from the fire wall going to/from the heater core, and couple them together so coolant would flow from one right into the other.
There’s no telling what effect this might have on the cooling capacity for the engine as it will be configured in a non-standard way. And air bubbles could get in with the hose disconnections. So good idea to watch for any signs of overheating while conducting this test.
fyi, here’s a link to a pretty good 4-part description of auto AC and the various problems that can develop and how best to deal w/them.
