I have a 2002 mini cooper, and since day 1 the air conditiner is extreamly week, I have taken it to the dealer and they say that this is how the car was built, anyone have a way to increase the power of an air conditiner to cool a car quicker? thanks
I would take it to an A/C shop and have them put a set of gages on it to check the low and high side pressures of your A/C system. This will tell you alot about how well your system is operating. They can tell you if there is something wrong or if something can be done to improve your cooling.
Do you have a thermometer that can read down to 40 degrees? If you do turn your A/C on to max put the thermometer in your vent and see how cold the air gets coming out while at idle and while you are driving. Depending on what the outside air temp is you should be able to get at or below 50 to 55 degrees I would think. If the A/C gets alot colder when you drive then I suspect you are low on freon.
With AC systems the high and low side pressures really need to be known.
A decent system should have output air at least 50 degree colder than the outside air IMHO.
You might consider getting one of those cheap AC thermometers, inserting it in the center vent, and noting the tempeature while doing some highway driving.
If it’s 85 outside and the air is 55 then you have a problem; either with the AC system itself OR, the possibiity of a blend door not functioning properly. The latter will allow heated air from the heater core to mix with the AC cooled air and hinder it quite a bit.
Have you tried Turing it on re-circulate? Sometimes out expectations are too high and this will squeeze out a little more cooling. Note it will not fix anything if there is a problem with the charge or blend door, but assuming there is no problem and the dealer is right, this might help you live with it.
How much do you want to spend? A good AC expert might be able to tweak your AC and give it more capacity. The person doing the tweaking will have to be very knowledgeable and not just a run-of-the-mill tech. It may also cost you quite a bit, possibly not. If you were in New Orleans, I would know where to send you. Ask around and find out where people take their classic cars to have the AC reworked. As an example, an associate of mine had a 70s Eldorado worked over and filled with R134 a few years ago. They had to replace quite a few parts, but the system worked much better than new when they finished with it.