We were somewhere north of Lumberton on I-95 the first week of July, the bank sign in town had said 97 degrees, and the air coming out of the CR-V's vents went from cold to cool to the temperature of a dog's breath in about ten minutes. June wasn't with us, thank goodness. Wes reached over, turned the fan down, then back up, and said nothing at all, which is how I knew he was worried.
We got it fixed for $165, and we drove to Lake Norman yesterday with the air blowing cold the whole way. Here's what happened in between, and what we do now to keep it from happening on a longer drive.
What Wes checked first
He works on truck air conditioning at the shop, so he had a mental list before we got home. The first things are the cheap and easy ones, and they're worth checking before anyone hooks up gauges:
- The cabin air filter. A clogged one cuts airflow and makes the air feel warmer than it is. Ours was due but not bad.
- The condenser. That's the radiator-looking thing in front of the actual radiator. Bugs, pine straw and road grime can block it. He rinsed ours gently with the garden hose, from the engine side out.
- The compressor clutch. With the engine running and the AC on, the center of the compressor pulley should spin with the belt. Ours was cycling on and off quickly, which pointed at low refrigerant.
- The fans. Both radiator fans should run with the AC on. They did.
- Fuses and relay. Fine, and he only checked because they're cheap to rule out.
Low refrigerant means a leak, because the system is sealed. It doesn't get used up like gas. He put some soapy water on the fittings he could reach and saw bubbles at the low-side service port, the little valve where a shop connects its hoses.
Why we went to a shop
Our 2017 CR-V uses the newer refrigerant that most cars from the last several years use, and it costs a good deal more than the old kind. The do-it-yourself cans at the parts store are pricey, and a can doesn't fix a leak. It just lets the leak continue with fresh refrigerant. Wes also didn't want to guess at how much was left in the system and overfill it.
So we took it to a shop in Lumberton. They confirmed the leak at the service port valve, replaced the valve core and cap, pulled a vacuum on the system to check it held, and recharged it to the factory amount. The bill was $165. It came out of our regular checking, not the trip account, because Wes and I agreed a while back that car repairs are household money. The trip account is for trips.
The vents put out air in the low 40s afterward. Wes measured it with a cooking thermometer stuck in the center vent, because of course he did.
How we keep it cool on long drives now
Some of this is about the car, and some is about not making the car work harder than it has to in a North Carolina July.
We park in the shade when there's any shade at all, and we put the windshield sun shade up even for a 30-minute stop. When we get back in a car that's been baking, we open the windows and run the fan for the first minute to push out the hottest air before the AC can catch up. On the highway we use recirculate once it's cooled down. That's easier on the system than pulling in 97-degree outside air the whole way.
Wes now looks at the condenser in front during his pre-trip check, the same way he checks the tire pressure. He also says to run the AC a few minutes every couple of weeks in winter, even with the heat on, to keep the seals lubricated. Our defroster already does that on its own, he says, but it doesn't hurt.
The cabin filter got replaced too, for $14 at the parts store and about three minutes behind the glove box. That's the one piece of this I did myself, and I'll be mentioning it at supper for a while.
Yesterday's Lake Norman day trip cost us $73 total, $41 of it gas, and we came home cold and happy. In July, out here, I'll take the cold part as a win on its own.
