Hello everyone – I’ve been having problems with my girlfriend’s car for the last few months and decided someone might have on insight on the situation here at Car Talk discussions.
The car at hand is a 2001 Nissan Altima GXE. When we first bought the car, everything was fine. However, for the past few months, the car has been giving a loud screeching noise every time we turn on AC. At first, the noise would come and go. It would disappear sometimes when we would hit the gas and let go. However, lately the sound is constant and we decided to not even have the AC on anymore. This is horrible since we live in LA and summer is approaching.
We’ve taken it to a mechanic, however, we were told that there didn’t seem to be a problem with anything. Our recommendation was to wait it out and see if any problems occur. However, this noise tends to be extremely loud and worrisome, so we want to take care of it before anything goes wrong.
Any suggestions would be appreciated! Let me know if I left out some info. Thanks!
Find a better mechanic and demonstrate the noise to them. Probably either your compressor is failing or the clutch to the compressor is. Hopefully, it is the clutch as that is cheaper and simpler. Either way, you do want to stop using the AC until this is resolved. Otherwise, the amount of damage and the cost to repair it may grow considerably.
You need another mechanic. Belt screeching is an indicator of a problem, even if it’s just a loose belt.
I’d install a new belt and make sure it’s properly tensioned before I did anything else. If you’re lucky that will stop the noise.
Tightening the old belt won’t help because the slipping has burned the belt and it should be replaced.
Sounds good guys! I’ll try it out and keep you updated. 