Air Conditioner won't conditon the air

I have a 2000 Ford Taurus with 160k miles on it. I plan to drive it for just a few more months, before I get my next car, so I am not at all interested in pouring any more money into it. A few months ago, I noticed that at times, my air conditioner would stop blowing cool air, but would start back up soon. Lately it would cut out more often than not. I took it to the shop and they told me it was the compressor and a leak. $800. With the body damage to the car, I can’t even get that much if I sold it. So, I took it to a friend who put some freon in. Now, when it DOES blow cool, it blows COLD. My question is, are they right that it is the compressor? I have found that when it stops blowing cold, if I speed up, especially if I floor it going up hill, the cool air kicks in again. I’m not sure if it is the RPMs or the strain on the engine, but it usually fixes the problem. Unfortunately, I sell Cancer Insurance, door to door, and kind of idle around, all day, looking for people at home. When it gets hot, I have to find a stretch of highway and floor it. This is hell on my gas mileage, as you can imagine, not to mention time consuming. What is wrong with this piece of junk?

Crystal Hale

Time will tell. What kind of shop was that that gave you that estimate? Dealer, chain, independent? Have you used them beforee and found them reliable and honest?

It is quite possible that you have a leak in the compressor and it is not going to stay fixed long.

My personal diagnosis is that the refrigerant is not full to spec, and when you floor the car, that give the refrigerant time to recover, and the cooling process restarts. Either the system is not properly filled to spec, or your leak is large enough to cause refrigerant loss over time. Your friend no doubt used one of the cheap gauges (if any) that may or may not have you filled with refrigerant to spec. Recheck the refrigerant level and determine if more can be added. Note that you didn’t fix the leak, so expecting one fill of refrigerant to last very long is unrealistic. Apparently the compressor is maybe OK, but could have a seal or other leak and is not performing up to speed, either. You are probably on borrowed time as far as AC goes. You did get 160K out of the “junk”, so you can’t complain too loud.

I guess it was a chain. I am questioning their reliability, which is why I submitted the question.

My friend has a car dealership, and that is where he did the refrigerant, so not sure if it was a cheap gauge or not. I am starting to doubt that there is a leak, since the freon was put in over a month ago, and nothing has changed. Thanks for the input about filling it to spec, that is what I will do next. I hate to pour much more money into it. And when I called the car junk, I was referring to it’s current shape, not the years prior which led to it becoming the junk it is today! lol.