Airco confirmation question.

[kaneelschep]

I have a little question about the airco.
I read so much ( also conflicting) info with for me unknown measurements as fahrenheit, psi, etc, i cant make a solid story out of it anymore.
Also we are not allowed to do anthing to airco by hand by law. So i cannot get any handson expertise on it.
All garages who work on airco have proffessional machines wich can empty and fill all cars automatically and make a printout of exactly what happened.

So My 95 850 was at my holiday adress garage for the second time for airco leak check. Since in holland i never use the airco anyway for obvious reasons
The airco works fine when filled, but after about a week of normal use in hot 35C around 95f? weather it would be empty. Never used it in any other weather. So no refference.
Last summer the man filled it with tracer dye a few times but could not find any leak in the engine bay.
This time i told him to take it a step further under the dash.
We talked about the evaporator since i read it always goes bad.
He confirmed about having to take the whole dash out for it. And knew about the pile of work involved.
But when i picked it up today he said he didnt have to do all that work, cause he could check for the dye by only taking the passenger foot cover away.
He did replace a rusty coupling somewhere wich didnt look good to him. But did nothing to the evaporator since then it would have emptied and lost pressure out much faster.
He filled it with dye etc again and told me to come back next week.
Airco is cold again. Didnt try temping it yet though. But it would always be nice and cold for a week.
Now of course you always see. My luck.
Suddenly the weather changed to cold and rainy today. 12c. 56f?
With warm engine idling, airco on absolute coldest, fan at 3/4 it cycles every 7 seconds.

Now my questions.
Was the man right about the dash dye check? Or did he just tell me nonsense cause he didnt have the time or whatever.
And is it supposed to cycle like that with cold weather at idle? Or does it mean it is loosing filling allready
Only saterday they predict almost 30c 90f weather again to really put it to the test.

Thanks a lot!

[beigg]

If you were upfront and honest to the shop that you accept all the risks involved to removing the aged dash to inspect, test, & replace the evap as needed, then likely it was not the culprit... I have my doubts on it check out leak free tho, especially if all the engine bay areas were test with the uv dye.

[E Showell]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you replace the Schraeder valve in the a/c charging port, along with the accompanying o-ring. Lots of these valve leak very slowly over time. For a few Guilders (Euros?), you might just clear up your a/c issues. If not, you aren't out a lot of money and have eliminated a possible culprit.

[Clemens]

The 7 second interval wouldn't scare me at 12 degrees. Doesn't need lots of comoressor work to keep the temperature low.
Seriously, this is a lousy summer in europe.

[kaneelschep]

Yes exactly. The engine bay was looked at from all sides with dye. Thats why i wanted him to really dig in now. It was all arranged and quoted etc. But he said he didnt have to cause it would really leak a lot faster from a broken evaporator. And he could check the piping and connections from under the passenger feet.
That was a bit strange for me since i really thought the whole dash had to go to even see it.

It was quite a rainy summer yes. But luckely mostly at night and then again very warm during the day. Got a good tan Only wednesday it turned ugly for a few days. It is allready 20plus celcius now.
We are just making the most out of it by driving a lot to test. Airco full on. Sometimes even windows open.
I will keep timing the pump and get a thermometer in the car.
I will tell him about the valve.

[abscate]

You can definitely get a slow leak at the evaporator, my 1999 had this happen in 2007. It took one year for the charge to get low.

[kaneelschep]

That is very good to know! The man said it is mostly a connection leaking with slow leaks.
It sounded convincing. When i think of a radiator leaking i also think of it emptying out in minutes rather than weeks.

Yesterday we were driving around in budapest for a few hours getting some papers done for my girlfriend. This can take days here.
It was 27C, 85f? Slow traffic. Airco worked nice.
We taped a thermometer to the middle airoutlet. And it showed under 10c while on coldest. It was all good.
Halfway the day though it suddenly got warmer and warmer till the point it had no use anymore.
After having it off for half an hour, it works again for a few minutes.
That just means its about empty right?
This was after about 300km. Shorter than last times.

Today the car is going back. The good man was rather dissapointed about it still not working. Maybe besides filling, the airco stuff is just not his thing. He got a lot of dye and will spend his weekend on it.
It is his own garage and he is really a good, clean and fast mechanic and nice man who everytime knew what the problem was and fixed it well.
I have been going there for a long time on my holidays with many a cars and their problems.

[abscate]

You have a clutch gap problem if the AC goes hot, then comes back in 30 minutes.

Search here for bread clip fix...you will have to use zip ties since you don't get our bread clips in Holland usually.

[erikv11]

The mechanic should have checked the clutch gap a long time ago, it is trivial to do.

To answer the essential question of your very first post (which was spot on): No, the mechanic can not see if the evap core is leaking by pulling the lower dash cover.

The first part of the thread points to a leak in the system (almost certainly the evap core - they all leak by now), the more recent observation points to a second issue, a compressor clutch gap problem (super easy to check, end easy to fix with zip ties).

[cn90]

1+ on Clutch Gap issue.

I posted some photos of zip tie fix .
OK it is a FREE fix, costing you nothing other than a few zip ties.
Get the smallest zip ties you can find.