My wife has an '04 Accord V6 and she is starting to have an air conditioning problem. The car has about 64,000 miles and is well maintained. Twice now, the air has started blowing warm air while the temp selector has been set to cold (this has happened in auto climate control and manual). Both times it blew warm air for about 10 minutes before it got cool again. These occured while running about 50-65mph and about 65 degrees outside (not sitting at a traffic light). Sitting in the driveway, the a/c runs fine and both electric fans run strong. I am thinking that it might be just a hair low on freon. We are going to be taking a trip in a week and I'm hoping the a/c will work fine for us. Any common problems?

 

Do NOT add freon unless you test the pressure of the system and find that it is low.

Look at the A/C lines for signs of oil/dirt buildup at any joints.

Also look at the compressor clutch to see if it is not spinning at the same rate as the pulley when you give it gas. The clutch is the plat that sits in front of the a/c compressor pulley.

 

This will be a difficult problem to resolve if the fault occurs infrequently and w/ no particular sequence of events. Once the fault occurs, if you observe the compressor is failing to engage, this suggests excessive clutch gap. This fault is particularly likely, if the air is normally cool when AC is functioning.

Lack of compressor engagement could also result from a faulty evaporator temperature sensor, hi/lo pressure cut-off switch, or intermittent compressor clutch coil. All these items could cause intermittent cooling and normal activity at other times.

good luck

 

Thank PAhonda and TexasHonda. I will be hooking up some gauges today to the system to see if it is just low on freon. I did notice yesterday that after driving for about 30 minutes, the air started blowing warm. It was 75 degrees outside (coolant temp was normal). I pulled over and noticed that my compressor wasn't spinning at all (not even cycling on/off). After about 15 more minutes of driving, the a/c worked fine for the rest of my 6 hour drive. The temp was steadily dropping though. Thanks for anymore input.

Drew

 

You need to figure out why the compressor clutch was not engaging.

The compressor clutch should get power from the a/c compressor relay. When the compressor is not engaging, I would check for power at the a/c compressor plug. If it has power, then there is something wrong with the clutch, or the gap. If you don't have power, then something is turning off the system upstream and you will have more diagnostics to do.

I don't know how an 04 is wired, but a Haynes manual should have that testing information.

 

You can go to autozone.com and get a wiring diagram for your model. PA's procedure should be your first check. No need to put gauges on unless cooling is subpar w/ compressor engaging. Everytime you hook up gauges you loose a little charge.

good luck.

 

My wife's 03 V6 A/C had a very similar problem, took to dealership, finally diagnosed "relay switch" that needed to be replaced, then told me there are two and it would be a gamble to replace only one. Told them I didn't want to gamble and replace both with an oil change. They replaced both and only charged me for one for good PR. Works perfect, must have a good Honda Dealer...they have helped me many different ways other then just this problem. We are lucky to have two great dealers in Little Rock. We have two Accords V6 and Pilot, not only for reliabilty, but the service the dealerships have provided. I finally learned that if you 'use' the dealer for oil changes, etc...its cheaper in the long run...the two Accords have a combo milage of 275K, this has been the only problem that bothered us.