Air Con Problems for the owner of this VW Golf ?

Air Con

4-year-old VW Golf has Air Con Problems

As I have said many times this is the time of year that we can be busy rectifying air con problems on our customer’s cars. This year we are enjoying a nice warm sunny summer. So, because many of the new model cars have been fitted with air con as standard. Of course, then the need for the air con to work and cool the car interior has never been more important. Many of our customers also travel to continental Europe for their holidays. So a good cold air con system is imperative for a good and comfortable journey.

There are many reasons why your cars air con can fail you. By and large, the commonest being that the customer switches it off in the winter time. Importantly, when summer comes expects their  air con to work normally. But in over half the cases their system will need a re-gas. After the re-gas is when other problems occur. The main problem is that if the air con system is not used then the system does not get lubricated. Consequently this will dry out causing common problems such as failed “O” rings and rubber hoses, due to the drying out process.

Sometimes we may get a customer in who says that the car is blowing cool air into the cab, but not cold air. This is usually when the air con is set at high with the fans on high but the car is still only blowing in the cool air, we have all been there, you just can’t get the car cold enough?

What we do in this case is first to check that the cooling fans are running

On the Refrigeration Condenser (the thing that looks like a radiator usually at the front of the car’s engine) when the air con system is switched on. Naturally, checking out the condenser for any debris such as dead leaves, dust or insects that may be clogging the condenser up, you would be surprised what we find clogging the Air Conditioning Condenser Unit up?

We also check out the Pollen Filter or cabin filter as it is sometimes known as, if it clogged up then we will replace it. We then check the pressures of the air con system to see if they confirm what they should be set at in the user’s manual. The condenser is a very important part of the air con system.

It works the opposite way to the radiator (evaporator), it sits at the front of the car and air is blown over the condenser, but the air soaks up the heat and then cools the refrigerant inside the air con system. All this is done under high pressure, the air carries the heat out of your car and the refrigerant converts it back to a liquid. The liquid is then sent back to the evaporator (a low-pressure area) and the taking place of the system moving from a high-pressure area to low-pressure area forces the refrigerants temperature to perform a rapid drop and the cycle starts all over again, super cooling the cab of your vehicle (simple?).

VW Golf had an air con cooling problem

On a day last week, we had a car presented to us with this exact problem, we carry out all repairs and other work on car  air con systems here at Pellon Autocentre in Halifax UK. Subsequently, the air was coming out in the cab cool but not super cool. The car was a 2010 VW Golf (only 4 years old). The

the customer left the car with us and we proceeded to connect up our air con machine and re-gas the cars cooling system. The problem was spotted straight away because the car started to leak out the liquid from the condenser at the front of the car. After an examination of the condenser, we found out that car had recently had a minor bump at the front end, and consequently damaged the air con condenser. In earlier times this is what happened to car radiators nowadays this is where the air con condenser sits and so takes the brunt of any damage from stones or small accidents.

However this was one of our easier jobs to do and we replaced the condenser with a new one, re-gassed the system and the customer and his VW Golf went on their way, with a nice cold cabin their car.