RS162 MY15.5 air conditioning

[tenyearguarantee]

Reichter, yeah made a huge difference. Tried it the other day when it was 30+ deg in the cabin. Cooled a lot better.

Octavia outsmarted me, I was spewing thinking that my 15 year old corolla pumps out cold air better than it!

[wfdTamar]

There's no button or setting for that in the Mk2, but I wonder if it might be accessible through VCDS? I'll have to have a look.

[rc_vRS]

Reichter, yeah made a huge difference. Tried it the other day when it was 30+ deg in the cabin. Cooled a lot better.

Octavia outsmarted me, I was spewing thinking that my 15 year old corolla pumps out cold air better than it!

I was just about to start a thread about A/C before I found this one.

I have an MY15 162tsi and in the last couple of weeks have been having intermittent A/C problems. The symptoms of mine:

- Normal A/C operation for a period of time, I normally have it set between 20-22 deg
- The Blower fan continues as normal but the air temperature from the vents becomes closer to outside although it never got hot even with 40 deg outside today, more like just warm air
- The (can be minutes into the drive or hours of continuous hwy driving)
- not ambient temperature dependent, happens with outside temperature between 20-40 deg (tested today in scorching heat!!)
- It makes no difference whether the climate control is on light/medium/strong
- It makes no difference whether it is set to Auto/dual/max lo
- After a period of time (~5-15 minutes) A/C will suddenly start blowing fully cold air again until the next cycle it happens.
- When the A/C is operating as normal there is no problem bringing the temp close to the 16 deg min.

Today I drove for 4 hour continuous and it happend 3-4 times during the drive. It has happened on other shorter drives too.

It really just feels like the compressor is disengaging sometimes then randomly comes back on.

Is this the same as other people are seeing? If so can anyone post anymore details on this software "fix" and what year models it is affecting before I go down to the dealer?

For those asking about Mk2 they don't have the climate control settings that the Mk3 has. I had a mk2 vrs for 2.5 years and never had any a/c issues. I always found the mk2 A/C adequate without being blown away when driving in the same situations as now. I had pretty dark tinted windows so that probably helped to cut the heat a bit.

[Reichter]

Reichter, yeah made a huge difference. Tried it the other day when it was 30+ deg in the cabin. Cooled a lot better.

Octavia outsmarted me, I was spewing thinking that my 15 year old corolla pumps out cold air better than it!

Excellent news! =)

I was just about to start a thread about A/C before I found this one.

I have an MY15 162tsi and in the last couple of weeks have been having intermittent A/C problems. The symptoms of mine:

- Normal A/C operation for a period of time, I normally have it set between 20-22 deg
- The Blower fan continues as normal but the air temperature from the vents becomes closer to outside although it never got hot even with 40 deg outside today, more like just warm air
- The (can be minutes into the drive or hours of continuous hwy driving)
- not ambient temperature dependent, happens with outside temperature between 20-40 deg (tested today in scorching heat!!)
- It makes no difference whether the climate control is on light/medium/strong
- It makes no difference whether it is set to Auto/dual/max lo
- After a period of time (~5-15 minutes) A/C will suddenly start blowing fully cold air again until the next cycle it happens.
- When the A/C is operating as normal there is no problem bringing the temp close to the 16 deg min.

Today I drove for 4 hour continuous and it happend 3-4 times during the drive. It has happened on other shorter drives too.

It really just feels like the compressor is disengaging sometimes then randomly comes back on.

Is this the same as other people are seeing? If so can anyone post anymore details on this software "fix" and what year models it is affecting before I go down to the dealer?

For those asking about Mk2 they don't have the climate control settings that the Mk3 has. I had a mk2 vrs for 2.5 years and never had any a/c issues. I always found the mk2 A/C adequate without being blown away when driving in the same situations as now. I had pretty dark tinted windows so that probably helped to cut the heat a bit.

Have you got your recirculation set for inside air or outside air?

[rc_vRS]

Excellent news! =)


Have you got your recirculation set for inside air or outside air?

I did try checking the option in settings for auto recirculate but it made no difference yesterday. I didn't try manually setting to inside air.

In my mkii I pretty much never changed it to inside recirc I just left it on the auto setting. It never acted like the new one does.

[Reichter]

Try manually setting it to inside air recirc. Different car, different system, different behavior. By having it set to inside, it'll recycle the already cooled air, keeping it cooler. If set to outside and its warmer outside, it'll mix warm air with cool air, so not making it quite as effective. Using outside is good for fresh air, but doesn't always help air con efficiency.

And on cold days, and you have the heater going, it won't be as warm as its mixing cold air with warm air.

I hope that makes sense.

[rc_vRS]

Try manually setting it to inside air recirc. Different car, different system, different behavior. By having it set to inside, it'll recycle the already cooled air, keeping it cooler. If set to outside and its warmer outside, it'll mix warm air with cool air, so not making it quite as effective. Using outside is good for fresh air, but doesn't always help air con efficiency.

And on cold days, and you have the heater going, it won't be as warm as its mixing cold air with warm air.

I hope that makes sense.

Yes what you said makes sense, but I'm sure this isn't what is happening to mine. I tend not to use inside recirc long term as it helps prevent drowsiness using fresh outside air (I do a lot of long country driving).

When the a/c stops working if make no changes at all after a period of time the a/c will work again as per normal. When the cold air starts blowing again the system has no problems cooling the car down with it set to outside air. So it's not actually a cooling capacity problem more that it just stops blowing cold air altogether.

As mentioned it can happen with outside temps in the low to mid 20's so really there should be no problem trying to bring the inside temp to 20 deg. It has probably happened more than I've noticed in the colder weather because when it starts happening it is fairly subtle. It has become much more obvious in the current heat wave in Melbourne.

[wfdTamar]

Maybe slipping AC belt?

[techdave]

- After a period of time (~5-15 minutes) A/C will suddenly start blowing fully cold air again until the next cycle it happens.

This is exactly what I'm experiencing. I doubt this is a settings issue...I've timed it a couple of times, and they're exactly 11 minutes lag (I checked the trip computer). It's definitely noticeable as it is instant cold after this 11-minute lag, almost as if switching from fan only mode. After it starts blowing cool air, I have no issue with the aircon strength whatsover..it is cooling fine just like any other car.

Yes, I'm in Melbourne as well, the last couple of days' of heatwave has definitely made it more noticeable.

[rc_vRS]

This is exactly what I'm experiencing. I doubt this is a settings issue...I've timed it a couple of times, and they're exactly 11 minutes lag (I checked the trip computer). It's definitely noticeable as it is instant cold after this 11-minute lag, almost as if switching from fan only mode. After it starts blowing cool air, I have no issue with the aircon strength whatsover..it is cooling fine just like any other car.

Yes, I'm in Melbourne as well, the last couple of days' of heatwave has definitely made it more noticeable.

Alright, it is fair to say this issue is reasonably common then. Thanks for confirming.

Can anyone who has had this software fix applied comment on what their actual symptoms were and whether the software update did in fact fix the problem? Any details from the service report would be great.