So my AC has been acting weird.
About 2 years ago my compressor crapped out and was replaced, been good since. Last time out in May I noticed it wasn’t blowing cold air, figured all the standing still over winter especially had accelerated the natural loss of refrigerant. It wasn’t hot out so I wasn’t too bothered back then.
After I got back to the car last week, I took it for an AC “service” with refill which involved the car being hooked up to a system for about an hour. Was told only 125 grams of R134A remained of the 440 which were spec’d. Figured that was it, and took off. AC seemed to work fine as I drove away, but shortly afterwards it turned out that it only cooled with the engine at idle or below 1500 RPM or so anyway. Took it back but they had no ideas other than to tell me to take it to an Audi dealership instead (something I wanted to avoid as they’ve all been clueless in my experience)
Time ran out so I figured I’d try and get it fixed somewhere along the way of our planned trip southwards. No fun lacking AC when it’s 35 degrees C out, obviously. The problem seems to be even worse in hot weather. It will cool a bit at idle, sometimes, but gives up pretty quickly. The weird thing about this is that it’s usually the other way around - ACs tend to work better with sufficient airflow to cool down and condense the gas and when the charge is borderline it would only work when moving.
As far as VCDS is concerned, the compressor is ‘ON’ even when it’s blowing hot air, FWIW. I’m uncertain whether something like a dodgy pressure sensor cutting the AC would then show it as “OFF” or not.
I’m not particularly familiar with the compressors in our cars, in particular the clutch and if it could be slipping under load.
Just asking if anyone’s had something similar as I’ll need the most possible details and luck to give anyone around here (in fcking Croatia) a hope in hell of getting it working. If I can find anyone in a shop who speaks English.