Air Conditioning Half Works

[joesid]

I am reading that it might be a low refrigerant. Dealer having a promotion next week.. they will refill gas and change filter. So waiting for this week to pass. Closed the passenger side vents so it merges with the driver side and cool a little more. Have you done any engine work on your car lately?

Water pump and valve cover gasket were both replaced by the dealer within the last 500 miles.

 

[gebaracuda]

Water pump and valve cover gasket were both replaced by the dealer within the last 500 miles.

I don't know if there's any similarities, but this actually happened after taking the car to dealership to work on the inlet manifold (which is a separate issue all together). After receiving the car, I noticed that AC was dead completely. It was working perfectly. So I took it back and told them AC was not working. They filled it up.. gave me a shitty excuse.. but didn't care as long as I thought they had fixed it. Then I didn't use the car for some time due to lockdown. Anyway, when I took the car out 2 weeks (after 2 months almost of not activating the AC), I had this problem. So I don't know if they messed up something at the dealership. I don't trust dealership too much. They just need you to come back

That's the reason I asked if you've done some work on it lately. This means that there must be a leak somewhere. And these things just don't happen overnight.

You can fill it with the right gas and see if it gets sorted out.

 

[joesid]

I finally got around to taking mine in. It was low on refrigerant. The weird driver/passenger issue completely went away. Source of leak is still TBD.

 

[gebaracuda]

same here. there was nearly no refrigerant left. apparently there's a leak from the valve. I have to live with it until i decide to fix the valve. usually the whole compressor is sold as a single part which includes the valve – it is not sold separately at the dealership. the compressor is working fine.

Replaced the oil. Took out the old refrigerant and fill-up with new. Operating great. Temperature outside is 53C .

 

[Finglonga]

Warm on one side and cool on the other is an indication that you're low on refrigerant, which means you have a leak someplace. Get it fixed under warranty if you're still under 36k miles, or find a qualified AC shop if you're not. Good luck!

Not at all, there is not two different a/c systems, if one side is cooling then it is an issue with the flaps on the other side that isn't. OP needs to start by doing a recalibration on the climatronic flaps (instructions on YouTube) and see if that works.

 

[jimlloyd40]

same here. there was nearly no refrigerant left. apparently there's a leak from the valve. I have to live with it until i decide to fix the valve. usually the whole compressor is sold as a single part which includes the valve – it is not sold separately at the dealership. the compressor is working fine.

Replaced the oil. Took out the old refrigerant and fill-up with new. Operating great. Temperature outside is 53C .

Now I don't feel so bad about the 48C temp in Phoenix, AZ.

 

[joesid]

Not at all, there is not two different a/c systems, if one side is cooling then it is an issue with the flaps on the other side that isn't. OP needs to start by doing a recalibration on the climatronic flaps (instructions on YouTube) and see if that works.

The manual single zone is different. While the single zone cars share much of the duct work and maybe even plenum from the dual zone cars, they have no ability to differentiate. My dealership initially diagnosed my car as having failed blend door motors, ordered the parts, and went install them only to learn that they don't exist on my car (VW service at it's best). Before I brought my car in, I did the re-calibration and flap test via OBD11.

The Fidelity extended warranty actually approved the replacement of parts that don't exist on my specific car lol.

 

[ishkrbibbl]

2019 SE has same issue w/half a@# AC - never that great - took it to dealer he says overcharged and that fixed it for the ride home. Some times it seems better than others but not what I would expect from a nice car. Trying to get it back into shop
What about Max AC Function under ac ? Has Version 1 and Version 2 and Reserved - anyone have any experience using those? New to VW so this is all new to me.
Have also read about changing Compresor run in and run time to 60 sec.
I'm listening...

 

[MK7GolfTDI]

Okay so I gathered some more information. Sent my borescope into the middle vents and took a look at any moving parts I could see. Here are the two temperature control flaps for the driver and passenger sides. To my eyes they both seem to be operating normally. These videos were taken while the OBDEleven app was running a actuate driver and passenger side temperature control flaps test.

Driver:

Passenger:

Additionally I grabbed some temps along with compressor load and pressure from OBDEleven. Outside temps were about 85F (29C) with no sun, so it actually did cool the cabin quiet easily during these tests and get to a point where the blower was on low, but the passenger side was always slightly warmer.

This is after running the AC for a few minutes at a synced temp of 70F (about 21C)

This is after running Max AC for a couple minutes (temps seemed to go up?)

This is after leaving the system completely off (blower and AC) for about 2 minutes.

And finally, this is after running the AC for about 15 minutes at a snyced 68F (20C).

I'm honestly not sure what to make of all this. The actuators do seem to be working normally, but the temps show that the driver side (left) is consistently cooler than the passenger (right). Is there a separate zone in the compressor for each side or something like that? Why would the temps get hotter when using max AC? In any case, hopefully the data can at least help someone looking in the future and possibly when I take it to the dealer to save them diagnostic time.

Did you ever have a resolution to this issue??? I have the same problem where the passenger side is blowing warm air and driver's side is cold. Dealership says it's the flaps. I have dual zone. Let me know what resolved the issue! I may just need a recharge maybe instead..

 

[jimlloyd40]

Did you ever have a resolution to this issue??? I have the same problem where the passenger side is blowing warm air and driver's side is cold. Dealership says it's the flaps. I have dual zone. Let me know what resolved the issue! I may just need a recharge maybe instead..

You probably won't get a response from him because he hasn't been in the forum for almost a year.

 

[Daks]

I’m having the same issue - anyone recharge the system themselves with one of those kits?

 

[jeyhd]

Hi, i have barely the same issue. Indeed the air conditionner sometimes work correctly and sometimes, le air is not cold enough. any idea were come from ?

 

[ChefGoldblum]

I had this issue as well, the drivers side vents were cold but the passenger side was only blowing warm to hot air. I reset the AC flaps using the video below by hitting the center vent button and AC button at the same time for a few seconds. It ran seemed to reset all of the flaps but there were some clicking noises but my AC seems to be working for now. Deutsche Auto Parts has a video that shows how to replace a part behind the glove box to fix the clicking problem permanently.

Reset AC Flaps Video

Deutsche Auto Parts Video

 

[MK7GolfTDI]

Did you ever have a resolution to this issue??? I have the same problem where the passenger side is blowing warm air and driver's side is cold. Dealership says it's the flaps. I have dual zone. Let me know what resolved the issue! I may just need a recharge maybe instead..

Gave it a recharge with my Dad's r134a machine. Its really cold on the driver side but still warmer on the passenger side. This points to a blend door. AC is blending the cold air with the warm air pulled in through the hvac. Gotta find a diagram of the hvac system and go from there.

 

[Phil D]

I got a Groupon deal last July from ATS to top up the air con on my Golf. They did the job telling me they always check the system for leaks before the gas goes in. I should stress this is a single not a dual climate system.

Anyway I can't swear that last July this was definitely working properly. It's my wife's car which I rarely drive. When I drove it that day it was definitely cold. Now we are in spring the following year and I tried the cold air again. The passenger side doesn't seem cold. The driver's side is cool. I've tried doing the 3 button reset trick to no avail.

I rang ATS. They tell me that they can't test this themselves and that I need to take it to get diagnosed by a specialist.

So basically I paid £100 for something that got very little use and it could cost a lot more to fix for something that is rarely used.

So are ATS wrong when they say the problem is nothing to do with gas or is it something like a compressor issue which will be expensive?