Air Conditioner: blows hot this season

Your post is a little vague... It would help us to know the temperature outside, what you have the climate control set to (temperature and settings). It would also help if you told us the model year of the car.

If it's blowing warm air when it should be cold, it's possible that the A/C coolant has leaked out of the system if it was damaged (another report of this a month or so back was caused by a puncture in the AC condenser).

If in doubt, take it to the dealer to get them to check it.

Mine was handling 40c (105f) temperatures in California last summer without any problems at all.

Dave

 

Re: Air Conditioner

NJDad, what year Prius do you have? Air cond. function was substantially modified starting with the 2004 model.

 

Mine keeps the cabin at 72 during the day in Dallas when it's 100 outside. Either that dealer is lying, or you're not using it right. If you have not already done so read the owner's manual carefully. If you still can't get it to do what you want ask your dealer for a demo. If *that* doesn't work, go to another dealer for service.

 

If I set my climate page on dash vent, the fan speed one notch higher than medium, and the temp on Max Cold, my Prius will freeze me out within 5 minutes. The A/C in the Prius is ice cold if it's working properly.

The service ports are very easy to get at under the hood. Why doesn't the dealer just hook up the gauge to see if the charge is correct?

 

I'm sure this is too obvious, but the A/C button is lit right?

I've had a few friends who assumed that when you decreased the temp using the steering wheel adjustments, that the A/C would autoamtically click on.

--GD

 

What do you set the temperature to? If, for instance, you set it high, like at 78 degrees, then when you first got into your car, the air conditioner would blow very cold because the temperature inside your car is 100 degrees or so. However, once it reduced the temperature to 78 degrees, the vents would blow only slightly cool air to maintain the desired temperature.

 

Hmm, my car doesnt seem to get very cold either. I set it to max cold, on medium air speed with recirculate on, and driving around for 15 minutes with shorts on (its about 80F outside) at nighttime and I didnt get chilly. Maybe I have too much R134a? I hope the dealer wont give me a hard time to check this out under warantee.

 

I occasionally switch over to just the fan (no yellow bar over AC button) and forget to turn AC back on when it's hot out. Then the air comes in mildly cool.

Maybe it happened to you? With AC on my car gets TOO cold in a few minutes.

 

It takes like 20 minutes min. lately to cool the cabin down when I leave from work in the evening.

My sight glass is clear, which means it is empty, or properly charged. If it were empty, I would have gotten NO cool, but I do, just takes some time to notice when the cabin is really hot.

Guess I'll have to invest in sun shields. Looking for ones that aren't a pain to put up and take down. Maybe a reflective car cover would be better!

 

Also take note of if your car has been in the direct sun for an extended period because in addition to the heating the cabin air, the interior surfaces (such as that great dark expanse of the upper dash) will absorb, hold, and radiate the heat that it has been exposed to the sun during that time.

It's an uphill battle for any car A/C to bring down the cabin air temperature while the car is still exposed to the sun.

 

Maybe I'm really being unrealistic about how well I think the A/C should work.... I expect the electric AC to be able to cool the car from 95F (parked in the shade) down to 65F within 10 minutes, I think it only made it down to about 74F (based on setting auto-max.ac then manually increasing the temperature setting until it auto-slowed the fan speed).

Dan, I'm looking at my sightglass also and its clear too.. from reading Ch55 of the '05 repair manual (refrigerant on vehicle inspection) I found a foam test: the sigh glass should show foam immediately after turning off the AC.. If it doesn't foam, then the coolant charge is excessive. I'll try a few more tests, havent seen any foam yet...

20 minutes seems like a long time for the car to cool down... even in sunny Fla!

Just got my priuschat sun shield, its huge to match the front window, and the outer coating looks metallic, like tin-foil.

 

I live in Hoboken and drive to Red Hook, Brooklyn for work every day. This has been a number of hot days in a row. I get in the car around 1pm and its in the 90's inside & out. I set the AC on Auto on the steering wheel and raise the temp all the way up to about 80. As I raise it up, the fan slows down. The as I start driving, I lower the temp slowly and close the feet vent and passenger side vents. This seems to work and by the time I'm on the Brooklyn Bridge, its blowing quite cool. The key for me is to start it off easy. Today the heat wave broke and I finally drove in town with the windows down. 8)

 

Well, my leaving from work has 2 problems.
1. the entire cabin is really really hot, right down to the contents of the dash, and even the console. That alone takes some time to cool before it stops radiating its own heat to the cabin air.
2. The sun is still out and strong. This combats the A/C's actual cooling of the cabin air, and cooling down the cabin component. Also, we as humans can feel that radiant heat even if the air temp on our skin is cool. The Prius tries to compensate, as it is aware of solar radiation based on the sensor by the windshield, but it can only do so much!

The car cools down much faster on cloudy days. Of course, it doesn't heat up as much in the first place, since there was less radiant heat to increase cabin air and component temp.