car is a 99 civic

yesterday when i was driving my gf's car, i noticed that when the AC is on, the engine feels like it's bogged on and off repeatedly.

what it feels like was that the A/C keeps coming on/off continuously with a cycle between 5 to 10 second.

With the A/C on, meaning turning it on by the botton
I can feel that when the A/C goes on, the car slows down, the engine lags a bit, I can hear the A/C sound also.
Then the AC will goes off, the engine goes back to normal and pulls, and the sound goes away.

The A/C also takes a long time to be cold.

What happened was gf was complainting that A/C isn't cold before, so we added some coolent. But we added too much and released to the right level now according to the guage.

Any clues of what happened and how to fix this???
I am scare that this will damage the engine, please help.

Thanks

 

A/C puts load on the engine so the engine feeling a little weaker is normal.

As for taking a while to get cold -- it'll take a lil time, but not that long. The freon needs to cycle is the reason. It may just need to be re-charged.

 

im not sure about the problem, but did you pump the freon with that over the counter r134 and gauge? if so i suggest you bring it to an a/c specialist to do your a/c, because that autozone stuff is garbage if you dont have the right tools.

 

yes, got the freon at walmart....

i pumped it myself with a friend.....

i wanna see if i can fix this myself before taking it out the a specialist, cost $$$

and poison, that's not the problem here, i know how ac works

 

Is it cold when you're at idle or is it cool? Does it get colder once you start driving? If so then your compressor is about to go. Do you have any problem once you start driving?

 

the problem is either driving or idle........

it keeps on coming on........off.........on..........off..........on. ..........off
and i can feel this too when driving, engine goes slows when on and pulls when off.......

 

when it goes off, a/c is no longer blowing correct?

sounds like a solenoid wiring problem possibly.

 

the AC is on at all times when the on off cycle happens.....
this is a complete stock car, no mods

poison, when you say no longer blowing, what do you mean?
at all times when the AC is on, the light is green at the button, air blows either when it's on or off....

but i can feels that the AC itself is going on/off on/off

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by intezn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the AC is on at all times when the on off cycle happens.....
this is a complete stock car, no mods

poison, when you say no longer blowing, what do you mean?
at all times when the AC is on, the light is green at the button, air blows either when it's on or off....

but i can feels that the AC itself is going on/off on/off</TD></TR></TABLE>

damn, hard to diagnose on this heh.

What happens when the A/C is completely off?

 

when the AC is completely off, meaning green ligth goes off by hitting the AC button.

the car goes back to normal, this only happens when the AC is on.

 

How old is the compressor?

 

it's a 99 honda civic, complete stock, with about 60k miles on the car
car i believe was made in 1998 of dec or so

 

just got the pm sorry.

maybe the clutch is starting to slip.

 

is an automatic

 

did you pop the hood and look for some green dye, around the compressor. park the car running the engine with the ac on, touch the big hose (the low side) can you feel a vibration of the compressor? if you do you could have a clogged thermostat expansion valve, or worse bad compressor. if not then you air in system, over charge the system. jf you have ac gauges then hook it up and see what is the pressure of the high and low side. if not just take to the shop and let the professional hook it up.

 

Bump!!! I'm having the same problem in my 97 accord though, on,off,on,off. I think I overcharged the system . What do I do now??

 

I have a similar problem on a 92 compressor/system... I know I initiated the problem when I over filled the refrigerant which caused the compressor to back-spin. My money is on a ruined clutch or seal in the compressor...

I am no A/C genius but I hate the on-off-on-off power draw when I try to use the a/c in that car...

Bump for a certified mechanics outlook;.

 

pull a vacume on the system and then recharge if it still does it its probably the compressor

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 95lx4dr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">pull a vacume on the system </TD></TR></TABLE>

what???

 

I can't spell vacuum

 

No, I don't mean the misspelling of vacuum... I am saying "what?" to pulling what vacuum line on the system

 

oic you hook up a special vaccum that will pull all air out of system and allow the proper amount of freon to be put in. there are a couple types of vaccums one is powered by a shop air compressor and the other is electric and self contained.

 

Sounds like you have the wrong charge level in the car and the compressor is kicking off due to either extremely high system pressures, or extremely low system pressures. You also most likely jacked yourself over by using refrigerant from Wal Mart as it usually contains leak sealer (very bad). Have fun paying to correct that one, it won't be cheap.

 

Get it professionally done have them evacuate, vacuum out the whole system and have them refill it. Also check if the condensor fan turns on when you hit the switch. When you tried to add some refrigerant you probably did it the wrong way. Did you add gas or liquid through the high side?

 

There is still to much in the system, you did take the ambient temperature in to consideration right ?