Took the car to dealership because air would blow really cold, then lukewarm, then cold, etc. Only other symptom was a rattle behind the glovebox, but then a car with 173,000 miles has plenty of rattle, IYKWIM. Initial diagnosis was that the system had TOO much refrigerant, so they let some out and drove it around. They couldn't get the temp to be consistent, so they started looking again...in the process of looking they discovered the wire to the cruise control was too tight, so they fixed that. They are thinking that perhaps the thermostat is bad, perhaps this, perhaps that, perhaps the after market radiator (sincerely doubt that since the radiator's been there six months prior to the a/c problem....besides, who can get a Honda part stranded out of town on a weekend?). Poor hubby has been there since they opened at 8 and now it is 4pm. I am getting the feeling that mechanic may not know which way is up, and now the car's idle is too high.

Some of the trouble I can attribute to less than careful work by my last mechanic, but we have no idea what the stupid problem is for the a/c. They tried to talk hubby into new evap coil, but it's only a year old....as is some sort of clutch there. I'm currently paying at least 92 bucks for them to take stuff apart and still not know what's wrong. Help?

 

O.K....I'm up to $600 worth of labor and a new expansion valve. The one that was there was only a year old to start with and they replaced all the year old o-rings, too. The car's a/c is still broken and I'm feeling like I'm dealing with someone who doesn't know what they are doing or is trying to take me for money I don't have. I have to go back in the morning. So I need to know how likely it is that an expansion valve would fail in a year, and how is it that a system would be overcharged and work properly for 8 months before beginning to freeze up.

Any sort of ideas would be welcome...I hate walking in blind. Right now, I'm considering throwing a mild hissy fit.

 

It could be so many things. It is hard to diagnose over the phone. What are the high and low pressures? is the compressor coming on? is it on when the a/c is warm? when it is warm what are the pressures? This is info needed to properly diagnose an a/c system. If it is at a dealer they have the proper resources to fix it....sometimes you have theories of how it should work and based on that try and figure/guess why it would be doing it like it is.

 

I don't know the pressures.
I would assume the compressor is coming on. Honda would have caught that.

Yes, we took it to the dealer. The dealer immediately said that there was too much freon in the system. He said the pressures were too high. They fixed that and brought the pressure back down to where it was suppose to be.

They ran a test drive and the problem was still there.

They offered to replace the expansion valve and the coil. I asked why replace the coil. They said that the car had 175000 miles on it and the coil probably went bad. I explained that the coil was replaced 11 months ago. They said, "Oh. then that is probably still good."

They replaced the expansion valve (which was also replaced 11 months ago.)

They did a test drive and sent me on my way. Before I got home, I could feel the temperature drop.

It usually drops after driving for a few minutes (5-10 minutes). There is no noise during the change. The air still blows. It just stops blowing cold. After about five minutes, the temperature gets cool again. Keeps going back and forth.