Hi folks, I'm back hoping you good people can help me. I've recently bought a air con recharge kit that shown slightly high pressure in the low pressure side which had me go looking for a reason. It's really confused me as I've found that the roof vents for the rear are blowing superb icy cold but I cannot get cold to come from the front vents, the fan blows in all the right directions and speeds, it'll go hot when asked but on full low it should be cold like the roof vents but it's just blowing ambient temp. There are no faults on the display when started, it seems to be moving all the flaps that I can hear it just will not cool the front of the car. Does anyone have any ideas to where I should be looking? My haynes doesn't show a great deal so I'm a bit lost so any pointers is hugely appreciated.

I have very limited knowledge of this but I think there might be two AC compressors in these lovely vehicles, one for the front and one for ze rear. If so, is it possible the front compressor isn't working? But I may be completely wrong!

Hi David, having two compressors would make a lot of sense but as far as I'm aware it only has the one. The aux belt only powers the one, I can see that is definitely working. I believe that the system runs the air con all the time then changes the air direction to maintain the required temperature, what I don't know is how that system of flaps in the dash works to make that happen.

I've now got icy cold air throughout the car, the system was just having one of those days. I ran vcds-lite which didn't have any fault codes then tried again and it ran just perfect, the recharge kit is very easy to use and now I can maintain the A/C myself avoiding that cost so all happy 😀.
Thanks 👍

"the system was just having one of those days"

Hehe, I love it when problems get fixed like this!

Another Groovy Galaxy back in tip-top form. And boy oh boy I bet it's a good one - 2.8L 24v? I bet it goes like a space rocket!

Out of interest, what was involved with doing the AC recharge yourself? I think our local garage now charges about £65 for a recharge, so the idea of a DIY job is very appealing. I find AC is just as much use in the winter (for demisting windows) as it is in the summer!

    

It is an amazing car for the money, being the vr6 24 ghia there is little a modern car has that this doesn't. My grandchildren especially like it for having the dvd media player screens in the headrests and that it has so much room, I'm still grateful that I can get my wife's electric wheelchair in the boot with the 6th seat in with space for the ramp plus a kids buggy. They really don't make these kind of cars now. Yes it does have a fair turn of pace even in auto spec, it will certainly surprise a hot hatch off the lights. I'm a petrol head so whichever car I'm buying it has to firstly be interesting to me, I sought out this car for over a year as I really had to have that engine which is not so common. It's a bit of a sleeper for sure and I remember being astounded when the Sierra cosworth came out with 200bhp, this has over 220bhp lol. Yes the diy A/C kit is really good, you buy the bottle of gas that's about £60 plus you need the trigger/adapter which is another £25. You can get it from halfords but you have to buy them separately so I found an ebay store that did the two for about a tenner less than high street, I opted for a digital trigger that gives instructions on how to use it. The advantages are that the bottle is supposed to contain 2-3 top ups so it's definitely less over two recharges compared to a service centre plus I like having the control of how much is being filled. Also the bottle has £10 refund when you need another one so it doesn't take much to save some money, it's called A/C Pro which I believe is owned by STP. It's definitely better than the kits with throw away cans of gas which never seem to be enough to get the system running, I highly recommend it even if you are not really mechanical minded. It's not possible to fit it wrongly and as said the digital trigger has full instructions as you use it, there is a cheaper analogue trigger but for the extra fiver I think the digital is easier and more accurate.