konaKevin

02 CR-V AC intermittent: works fine at idle. At higher rpm, compressor cycles. Help???

Hi everybody. I am a new member to the site. Here's my ac issue. Everything works great at idle. While driving or at higher idle, the condenser cycles on for 1-3 secs and then off for 10-30.. The air gets cold momentarily. All fans/blowers function properly. The self diagnostics showed no problems. I can hear the clutch engage on and off, with the corresponding engine drag. The pattern isn't exact and varies slightly, but there is consistently better functioning at idle or low rpms vs driving/higher rpms.

I did recharge the system which was on the low side, but with no change in compressor cycling symptoms. This 2002 has 130k miles and had the condenser, etc replaced twice by the original owner at 80k and 100k miles. Everything worked great for the past 9 months I have owned the car. Any ideas of what to check next, please? I was hoping after two prior replacements, I might be spared a major AC overhaul. Thanks in advance for your help!!!!!!!

microcraft

What were your gauge readings before and after you recharged it?

konaKevin

Thanks for checking in. it turns out I had overcharged the system. I only looked at the low value (from the can) that was 27. I filled it up to 35. Since then, I bought a pair of gauges and found my high was almost 300. I had someone recover the high side down to 175 and now everything works perfectly. Thanks to this site and a few others, I was able to learn that you need both side readings to get the full picture. BTW, a friend's mechanic suggested that the freon was too low before I got the gauges. Good thing I was out of any more or I would have probably put more in and blown the system totally. I also got a vacuum pump for any future problems, knowing how crv's are. for now, it blows wayyyy cold. thanks again for checking in on me. Kevin

blk1stgen

had the same problem on my 1999 CRV. I accidentally over charged the system after replacing the compressor, once i let some of the freon out, it started to blow ice cold again .. when it had too much freon the ecu would try to shut the compressor off, but it would cycle on and off continuously clicking on and off like crazy.


after i released some pressure it worked fine

konaKevin

i'm sure that's exactly what was happening with mine. you know that old saying, ... "too much of a good thing is bad for you..."