Well, today was the first hot day in Toronto.... and sure enough the air-con in the 1993 960 didn't work.
It blew slightly chilled air thru the vents, but never "ice cold air"... which I know this car is capable of. The clutch on the compressor was kicking on and off, and there was some noises from the unit for the first little bit.
Do you think it's a compressor problem, or do you think it just needs more R-134? This seems to happen every year or so to us.... Leak stop UV dye every year for the past 4 years... works for the whole summer, come again the next year and nadda.
You won't know what the problem is for sure unless you test it or get it tested.
I have a 134 refill kit that includes a pressure gauge and directions, kinda nice way to know how much I'm putting in there. Maybe you can find something similar at an auto parts store, that's where I found mine. If yours is low on freon, which is easy to quick fix, it may work while driving at speed (lots of air cooling the condensor) but not in stop and go traffic. This is what mine does when it gets low every couple of years, because it is either overheating or overpressurizing and switching itself off.
Then again, maybe you have a completely different problem than topping it up, although that is my bet.
By the way, do you run the a/c ever in the winter time (ie, with windshield defog)? Running at at least once a week or so the year round helps the seals last longer because they don't dry out.
If the system is low on freon, then the compressor will kick on and off frequently due to low pressure. In 4 years though I would have thought that they would have found the leak by now. But it appears to have a slow leak, since it at least lasts throughout the summer, and probably longer.
Of course it could be other things too.
Im just suprised that it is capable of blowing cold air at all, because I had a 1993 940 wagon and it SUCKED as far as the AC was concerned, would work great as long as I was moving, but come to a stoplight on a hot day and it would just get misreable in the car, very humid, but my 94 850 stays ice cold all the time even in 110f weather.
Anyway, I would take it in and have the vacumn it down and see just how much freon is left, most shops in my area charge $39.00 for this service, and if they suck out 1 lb of freon, then they only charge me for whatever else I need in regards to additional freon. For example, I believe my 850 hold
1.6lbs, so if they suck out 1lb, they only charge me for the additional .6lb of freon plus of course the $39.00 to do the job in the first place.
I just had my 850's compressor replaced, along with the dryer and some other pencil filter, total cost me $500.00, but my AC worked for the most part, but was initially low on freon, but made noises, so I went ahead and had it replaced before it siezed up and snapped the serpentine belt. Of course after I had the compressor replaced, the compressor relay went out (literally within 10 minutes, so had to get one of those from Volvo for an additional 25.00)
I took the car in today... It's the evaporator. They think the walls of it have become permeable to the R-134 and that it's slowly escaping. The technician said the rest of the system is sealed up nice and tight, and that it can hold a vacuum without a problem.
With the price of 134 being less than $3 a lb. you can recharge that sucker quite a few times for $1000. Only takes a few minutes then you are cool again.But $600 would be more like it even at a dealer. The job only pays 3 hours plus 1 hour for the evac and recharge plus the evaporator.
Yah, my dealer tech said he can't legally keep topping me up when there is a known problem (even tho its R134). He said the evap will keep getting worse.
$1000 (he said less then 1000, but towards the upper end of the 0-1000 dollar scale) isn't too bad in my opinion, its 2 months of car payments... Otherwise the 960 runs perfectly, so why not keep it that way ;-).
R134a is also considered to be an undesirable ozone-depleting chemical.
IIRC, its damaging effects were only something like 0.2% as bad as R12, but it will also eventually be banned completely.
There is currently a shift towards using a refrigerator style electric motor driven compressor for automotive A/C, which allows the complete elimination of flexible hoses (which are _always_ permeable enough to allow minute quantities of refrigerant to escape). These systems will have nominally zero refrigerant loss, and will probably be allowed to continue using R134a longer than any engine-driven compressor systems that (by necessity) use flexible hoses.
All 850s have a defective A/C system. Volvo found out about it much later and decided not to do a recall. Let customers pay instead. Same if not worst policy presently used by Ford. e.g., when an indep research group found that '99 and '00 S80 had front air bags that deploy in a 5MPH frontal collision, Volvo first said it was false. Then did their own tests and discovered it was true.
They implemented a fix for the rema>Yah, my dealer tech said he can't legally keep topping me up when there is a
Sorry, but memory is not what it used to be. This info, I got it from a friend who was working at Volvo HQ at the time. It was confirmed by another acquaintance who owns and operates an indep garage specializing in European cars.
I would like to help you, but I totally forgot the details. Add to that the fact that the 850 is the only model I've never owned and I guess you can understand me better.
This is noth>> All 850s have a defective A/C system. Volvo found out about it much
Funny that you can remember who you heard your "info" from, but not what the information was.
Could it be that there is no inherent defect in the 850 A/C relative to any other R134a Volvo A/C system? We have an 850 and an S70, both of which still have the original evaporators - no A/C problems. I had an evaporator replaced on a 760. That doesn't mean that all 760s have bad A/C systems, or all 850s have good A/C systems. Anecdotal stories are anecdotal for a reason.
You have no idea what I do or don't or how much I work. The sum of it is that you had no evidence to back your claim that there were inherent defects to the A/C systems in Volvo 850s. You couldn't prove that, so you chose to attack me. That's okay -- I've seen that tack used by plenty of morons before.
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