oofie

Hi, new guy here and have been lurking honda-tech for several months now but decided to register and post my problem.

Little background on the car. It is a 2007 Honda Fit with 194,000 miles. Owned it since new and didn't really have any A/C problems. A couple of months ago, it started developing this strange A/C problem when it began raining here in San Diego for about 2 weeks straight. Now it's getting warmer here, I've been noticing the A/C to be more problematic.

Anyway, the problem is the A/C will blow cold air intermittently. It wouldn't blow cold air when I'm doing highway speeds, or when its cold outside. If I leave the car and a/c running idle for 10 mins, it will start to blow cold air and the compressor will cycle like normal. Now, if I put it in gear, drive around for another 10 minutes, it will still blow cold air. However, if I go on the freeway, the compressor will turn off and it will be nothing. It wouldn't blow cold air again until I stop and leave it running for about 5-10 mins. So as a courier, out of the several hours I work, it will only be cold for a total of 10-20 minutes.

Last week, I took it to a local mechanic on my street and he said that it might be leaking freon. He put freon into the system from a small can. It worked for a couple of hours around the city but it started acting up again. I then took the car to an "A/C specialist" and they said I've got an extra pound of freon in the system while it only needs one. So they vacuum out the freon and put in what's normal. After that, they didn't really diagnose the car and immediately told me that the compressor needs to be changed, which they will charge me $1200. So I leave frustrated without the a/c fixed.

I'm somewhat skeptical that I need to change out my compressor as it will cycle normally if its working. It's just that there's a certain time of day and certain conditions that need to be met for it to work. So can anyone help me diagnose the a/c?

Thanks for reading!