Volvo V70 Air Con

The air conditioning can't work unless the engine is running, the engine drives the compressor. Is it the cooling fan you hear running?

The blower runs for a period of time after the engine is shut off to dry out the condensation from the air-conditioner. This is to keep the car from smelling musty. Our S80 does it also, it is a normal event.

Allen

The aircon compressor *cannot* run when everything is turned off because it is engine driven.

What you are hearing is an electric fan - probably the radiator fan which is driven by a thermostat and can run after the engine has stopped, and may not start immediately the engine is switch off - there may be a delay of a minute or two. [Not long enough to have gone to bed, I would have thought!]

What is the time interval between stopping the car and hearing what you believe to be the aircon? Presumably it doesn't suddenly start a long time - like several hours - after the car was last used?

Allen has it right. The air conditioning system extracts a lot of moisture from the incoming air and that moisture is just drained onto the ground as the car is operated. When the engine is shut off there is still a considerable amount of moisture retained in the AC system. Although much of it eventually drains out, some of it emains behind as a perfect environment for mildew to grow. The car computer is set to run the AC blower for about 5 minutes after the engine has been off for an hour to extract the remaining moisture.

It works.

Damn clever, these Nips... damn clever, I say !

Nick

Well, since this is alt.autos.volvo and since volvos are primarily made in Sweden, I fail to see what "Nips" have to do with the discussion. Apparently you're one of those who cross posts to numerous news groups in the hope that someone will care about your pitiful thoughts.

My my, you have managed post wrong information with a xenophobic slur in an incomplete sentence. Congratulations. Please don't try to top it with another performance..

I don't think my a/c is actually working correctly, not blowing cold all the time. If it is not and there is a build up of moisture would this cause the compressor to kick in. Is there a sensor that senses moisture so if I have excess moisture due to a problem with the a/c this is why the compressor is kicking in.

you push the On button it attempts to reach the temperature set by you. The extraction of moisture from the air is a helpful result of passing warm damp air over much colder coils in the AC unit. If it doesn't blow cool air while stuck in heavy traffic but works ok while moving down the road, try pressing the recirculate button to bring more inside air through the AC. If it isn't cooling all the time it could be due to the unit being low on refrigerant.