Last week it was hot here in Brisbane.
Mid afternoon Thursday I did a 25 minute drive in my 2019 MR dual cab to a friend’s house and the AC worked as normal.
After an hour I went back to the car and started up, and the AC blew hot air eg same as outside air temp. Checked all the settings and they were normal. Opened the car windows to let the hot air out, made no difference. Turned the AC on and off a few times. Drove the 25 minutes back home and AC still blowing hot air - not even a hint of cooling.
I noticed that when it was blowing only hot air, the car was idling high at about 950 rpm and not doing the cycling up and down from 600 to 950 as Tritons normally do when the AC is turned on. It just stayed at the high idle.
That evening I did a short run to the shops and lo and behold it started blowing cold air…. For about 2 minutes, before there was a noticeable change and we went back to hot air again. Stopped at the shops for a few minutes, then same thing again - started off cool, then like someone switched it off, hot again.
Friday morning early I tow the boat 3kms to the ramp, launch the boat and park the car - and all the time its blowing nice and cool again! Go fishing for a few hours, come back, open all the windows, start the car, and cool air again. - but again after about 2- 3 minutes its like a switch turns off and its hot air again. Got home, popped the bonnet and couldn’t see any obviously frozen bits. Tried to see the compressor to see if we could see the gap when the clutch engages but couldnt see it.
Now to Sunday and beyond to now (Tuesday) - I have done several drives, up to 45 minutes, stopped and started etc, and ITS BACK TO WORKING NORMALLY AGAIN! Air seems to be as cool as would normally expect in this hot humid weather we have been having.
I had it booked in at the local dealer tomorrow (car is still covered by the 7 years warranty) but cancelled that earlier today because I figured that they wouldn’t be able to find anything since its now back to normal and they would then want to charge me the $165 “diagnostic fee” when they couldn’t find anything wrong….
By my limited AC knowledge if the gas was low/escaped then the AC would not get cold at all, or not stay cold as it has on the longer test drives I have done, so it’s something else…
Plan at the moment is just to monitor it and if it happens again, to try to go direct to the dealer so they can see the problem live in real time in front of them….
Mate who has a MQ says it sound’s similar to an issue he had a year or so ago that eventually got to the point where the AC didnt work at all, it was the clutch in the compressor and a new compressor solved his problem.
Any thoughts?