It's getting hot in here... A/C not working

[SH3P]

Had the car since mid September, and haven't used the air-con that much, drove it a return trip of abour 1200km
only to discover aircon is blowing hot air, luckily for me we seem to be going through mutliple dasy of 27+ degrees

Took it to the dealership who agreed that is is broken, and will being going in thursday morning to be fixed.

Has this happened to anyone else? what was the cause?

[Lemonskin]

Ouch, today not a good day to have broken A/C.

[SH3P]

Car was inspected today... and got a nasty surprise...

To quote the job sheet

"CARRIED OUT DIAGNOSIS AND FOUND FRONT A/C CONDENSER UNIT TO BE DAMAGED
AND TO HAVE LOST A/C REFRIDGERENT GAS
APPEARS SOMETHING HAS HIT WHILST DRIVING, DAMAGE TO LOWER FRONT BUMPER BAR AND TO CONDENSER
REPLACEMENT OF CONDENSER, O-RING SEALS AND RE-GAS REQUIRED
A/C CONDENSER: 1K0820411Q
O-RING: 3D0260749C
O-RING: 4E0260749A
TOTAL REPAIR COST IS: $1276.00 ALL INCLUDING

Not the kind of bill I wanted after Xmas, and for a 3 month old car, i have no recollection of having anything hit the car, and its only been driven by my wife and brother in law once...

I elected to wait to get it repaired, I assume the quote is reasonable? anybody know?

[Lemonskin]

Unfortunately since the new carbon pollution nonsense the Fed Gov't introduced, one of the things hardest hit was refrigerant gas. Prices have skyrocketed as it;s now taxed like crazy. So yes, it's probably a reasonable quote. Just be glad you're not a small business owner with a few old refrigerators that need fixing!

[kazmeyers]

Did they show you what this " DAMAGE TO LOWER FRONT BUMPER BAR AND TO CONDENSER" was? Photos?

[kazmeyers]

On a similar note - I find the AC in my Sirocco to be barely sufficient for our conditions. Above 30 degrees outside, and the car struggles to keep the cabin cool. :\

[SH3P]

will add photos in the morning

[Beer Baron]

On a similar note - I find the AC in my Sirocco to be barely sufficient for our conditions. Above 30 degrees outside, and the car struggles to keep the cabin cool. :\

something may be wrong with yours. I was in the hunter valley last weekend and it was high 30s and low 40's outside all day and the rocco coped just fine. cabin was nice and cool within a couple min of hoping in the car and in fact got a bit cold after a while. I only used the 'max AC" button once after it had been out in the sun for a good period. I would say the AC is as good or better than most cars I've owned. many cars AC performance dropped a lot when they banned R12 refrigerant and replaced it with R134A which is less efficient. so for a while we had systems with condensors/heat exchangers designed for use with R12 being used with R134A and that provided sub par performance. now of course things have caught up and we have larger heat exchangers etc and systems that are designed from scratch for R134A. There's no reason it shouldn't give you a nice 20C cabin on a 30C day.

[SH3P]

Where the dealer believes the projectile came through


Where the condenser is damaged

[Beer Baron]

yeah it's fairly hammered and I can see at least one tube is split which would have released the refrigerant thus making the AC just a warm fan....

the total repair cost seems about right for a new genuine condenser at dealership prices along with remove/replace, re-gas etc. it's a bitter pill but you might be best to just swallow it and move on.