titanfan12

My girlfriend has an 08 Honda Accord with 37K miles. She hit a deer a couple weeks ago which caused about 4K damage to front of car. Have had no trouble with car before accident. Just got it out of shop and the next morning on way to store she turned on the AC and it started billowing smoke. Quit making smoke but now makes hot air. Took it back to the shop today and they said it needs new AC and was not caused by accident and warranty ran out at 36K miles. It has been a relatively cool winter here and AC has not been run in months. Anything that comes to mind that could have been caused by the wreck that could have affected the AC? Calling insurance back but I doubt they going to cover it either.

briq4

Relatively cool or not, if your girl uses the defroster or defroster and floor setting the a/c turns on automatically even if you have it "off" so if it wasn't smoking before the accident and she used those settings, it's due to the accident and needs to be fixed.

burnRubber

Check the condenser. I'm not sure where it is in a 08 accord, but in my 99 accord the condenser is right in the front behind the bumper grill. Also there is no net or shield of any kind in front of the condenser. So one day a rock or something must have flown into the grill and damaged my condenser. The AC fluid leaked out and that was the end of my AC. And all it blew was hot air.

So I had to change the entire condenser, which isn't a big job. I also built a net out of chicken wire to protect the condenser this time around. This was two years ago, I found a great forum post on how to fix the whole thing somehwhere online so if you google it you might be able to find it. The condenser being prone to road debris was a notorious problem for 99-02 accords.

rhino1

the condenser up front was more than likely changed out if the accident did that much damage. that wouldnt cause smoke to come out of the inside vents.

KWayRacing

What did the shop report the problem as? When you say it needs a new ac what do you mean? With 4k of front end damage I would suspect there was some ac system damage, but maybe not. Need more info to be of any help.

Rhino, the sudden change from working to not will callow you to see the moisture the evaporator is unable to draw out of the air and sometimes this is described as smoke.