Resurrecting the wife's 99 T5

[Auburn T5]

If the line going through the firewall is cold and the air blowing out is hot then the problem could be stuck dampers on the climate unit that have the air forced to the hot side rather than the cold side. The cold line also says the condenser coil is likely OK since you have a good flow of refrigerant.

Do the AC and REC lights flash on the climate control unit when you first start the car?

...Lee

Yeah the climate lights flash but they've done that for at least 7 or 8 years now. Isn't 1st step to fixing that, blowing some compressed air into the little tiny vent there on the dash sort of behind where the ignition is?

The compressor cycles on/off every 5 or 6 seconds continuously which seemed at first glance to indicate low coolant but I added a full can of refrigerant and it barely did anything. I don't want to over-charge the system and I don't have a gauge manifold/hoses/vacuum pump to measure everything properly either. I have a 2nd can of refrigerant but when I attach it and pull the little trigger, I can't feel the can pumping out anything?? Like I will feel it releasing refrigerant for a second but then it stops and pulling the trigger doesn't seem to do anything.

[mecheng]

Rev the car to 1500 rpm with A/C to accept the charge

[Auburn T5]

Rev the car to 1500 rpm with A/C to accept the charge

yeah I had the wife doing that.

Also the little needle on the gauge was all over the place. When the compressor turned off, the needle would fall all the way down to the bottom of the gauge and when the compressor kicked on it would just shoot way back up and never stopped anywhere in particular. That sort of puzzled me because last year when I recharged it, it stayed at one spot pretty constantly and as I was recharging it, the compressor STAYED on and the air coming from the vents went from hot air to ice cold and stayed that way.

so yeah, this recharge did not go like last years'.

[abscate]

The flashing lights indicate a fault in the climate system. It can be benign or it might be inhibiting your AC completely - you have to read the codes to learn this.

[Auburn T5]

yeah and it's not an OBDII code either I don't think (at least it doesn't show up on my scanner). Isn't the dealer the only one that can scan for that code?

[mecheng]

The flashing lights indicate a fault in the climate system. It can be benign or it might be inhibiting your AC completely - you have to read the codes to learn this.

Only the dealer can read these codes correct? I have no codes showing. I will try cleaning the temp sensor like some have suggested. Both my A/C and heat work perfectly.

[Ozark Lee]

I think VOL-FCR will read climate codes on the S/V series. Cracked versions of the program are all over the P2P sites and the VAG-COM cable is under $20.00 on eBay. For the 850s you need to build a flash code reader.

...Lee

[Auburn T5]

So I need this cable

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KKL-409-1-vag-4 ... 1e8c0e68e1

And I need to "acquire" the VOL-FCR software?

[mecheng]

Put a vacuum to the temp sensor to clean out all the dust and it worked! No more blinking lights.
It appears to be a fan I guess to suck air past the probe? Funny thing is it only spins when it's not on auto, I thought it would be the other way around???

[chashiubow]

Thanks for the update.