'97 Corolla air conditioning ineffective at higher temps.

Since the car is 8 years old, it probably could use a refrigerant re-charge, should be under $100 and if you shop carefully, can be as low as $50.00.

Scott and Ray,

Thanks for the quick responses. I'll definately have someone take a look at the AC now...

Regards,

Robin

"Robin S." wrote: > Local temp is up around 30ºC (about 85ºF) and my air > conditioning is pretty > ineffective. At lower temps, towards 25º (77ºF) it works > fairly well, but at > 30º the air is merely not hot. > > I use fresh air as it's pretty humid here (Southern Ontario) > and > recirculated air gets kind of nasty pretty quickly. > > I thought I had read that this was a problem with Corollas of > this vintage. > I'm just wondering if it's worth looking into, or is this as > good as it > gets? Further, roughly how much $$$ am I looking at if it is a > fixable > problem? > > Thanks for any thoughts. > > Regards, > > Robin

Check to see if your condenser fan is running when AC is on. This will cause the condeser to run to hot and cause pressure to get to high, therefor will not get cool.

To clarify, the condenser fan should be running when the AC is on. If it is not running then you will get ineffective cooling. When you open the hood, you will see 2 electric fans. 1 starts and stops depending on coolant temperature and the other starts and stops depending on AC usage.

You can do a quick check yourself on refrigerant level. Open the hood and look near the radiator for a vertical canister shaped like a small thermos. The canister will have tubing going in and out and should (but sometimes does not) have a small glass window about the size of a dime on top, called a sight glass. With the AC is running, look at the sight glass (you might have to clean it off with a rag or paper towel) and see if white foam appears in the window. If you see foam, then refrigerant is low and air is in the system so it needs to be recharged. A few stray bubbles is OK.