My A.C. only works on the passenger side and not the driver side. Is this a simple fix? My compressor was replaced just before buying the car.
Hope someone can help...Thanks

 

That typically indicates a recharge is required. First read the codes and make sure there isn't an actuator problem.

 

 

Are you serious or did you just pull that out of your ***? Seems to me the only thing separating driver and passenger side air is a few blend door actuators.

 

I CAN NOT believe you just SPEWED that comment

Thats the CORRECT diagnosis.. Its most likely LOW on charge OR the actuator for the warm side is NOT working properly.

 

I did, so I must be missing something. Is that part of the strategy? Low charge pressure, sweat out the driver? Doesn't make sense to me, if the charge is low the air should be cool for no one.

 

I have no idea why, but MANY people, me included, have fixed the warm air from the drivers side vents by re-charging their system.

You can go off and figure out why if you want to. I could care less why the system behaves that way. I doubt the OP cares why the system behaves that way either.

 

outside of a dead battery & the blend doors coming out of calibration, that usually means the system is low & needs to be refilled.

 

With a typical AC system,, one evaporator is used to cool all the incoming air in the HVAC Air box. If the charge is a little low or a little high, it affects the air out of ALL the ducts at the same time.

When you have a dual zone system with that same evaporator, 1/2 of the evaporator cools the driver and the other 1/2 cools the passenger. The evaporator is physically divided in half inside the HVAC air box with plastic ducting.

When the R-134 in the system is properly charged, the system maintains a specific high pressure liquid on the back side of the orifice tube. That pressure allows the orifice tube to sprays a specific quantity of liquid R-134 into the evaporator where if puts liquid R134 throughout the length of the EVAP COIL .

That quantity of R-134 enters the evaporator where there is LOW pressure and the liquid R-134 changes state to a gas inside the evaporator tubing. The change of state from liquid to a gas is where the cooling happens. If the system is properly charged, that liquid changes state throughout the entire evaporator coil.

When the system is low on R-134, the liquid quantity is insufficient and cannot reach the entire length of the evaporator cooling coil. The charge changes to a gas somewhere inside the evaporator and the liquid R134 loses its ability to cool the entire evaporator coil.

So,,,, If the DRIVERS ducting is using the lower half of the evaporator, it does not get the liquid R-134 necessary to flash over to a gas and cool that part of the coil.

On the flip side of the cooling/heating operation, there are TWO BLEND DOORS. Those doors are operated by two electric Door ACTUATORS They are both controlled by the main temp **** but the passenger’s side can vary the main **** setting by 10% UP or 10% DOWN to suit the passenger needs.

If one of those BLEND DOOR ACTUATORS is out of sync or stops working and is in a FIXED position, you get whatever temp it stops on while the other actuator is able to operate properly.


Reading the DTCs will show you if one or BOTH actuators are not working DTC B-0361, 0363, 0365, 0367, B-0441, 0446 are all actuator error codes.





Bill