Mike Green9

Hi.
2008 3LT

A/C stopped working this past summer. Compressor never clicked on. The underhood fuse and relay are fine.

I pulled the Pressure Switch Sensor thinking that might be the problem, and I noticed I didn’t hear a small hiss of coolant coming out as I unscrewed it. There is no pressure in the system at all – on both high and low sides. Okay so I have a leak.

Is this a common occurrence on a C6? Is there a known “weak” spot that I should be checking out?

I’ve never had to take my C6 to a dealer or shop, but now it looks like I have no choice. Are there tricks to a C6 that a dealer might know as opposed to an independent shop?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
M….

Corvette_Ed

I've never heard of any so-called "weak spots" other than just those typical to pretty much any car. The condenser would be a likely culprit, and also an expensive one.

Oh Boy

Since you have no freon in the system now would be a good time to add some with the dye in it. With the uv light you can pinpoint the leak pretty easy.

Tpatt

Look for any sign of oily residue on any part of the AC system. Check crimps on hose ends and all connections of hoses. If you drove the car after you noticed the AC stopped. You may just see dirty wet area where it's leaking.

If you have a favorite place to work on your car. I would feel safe letting a independent shop working on it . I would just be sure they work on corvettes.

Mike Green9

I will have a look around the compressor and components tomorrow. The car is 'like new' under hood, so it may be easy to spot oil residue.

I have a lift and I'm pretty handy around cars, but I'm not comfortable around a/c pressure issues and recharging. I also don't have pertinent equipment for that job. I could change components, and then take it somewhere for vacuuming out the system and recharging.

GM has been having some serious a/c compressor issues: https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2...-lawsuit.shtml
although this does not relate to the C6

Buddy of mine used to work at a local GM dealer. He says there is a 'vette guy' there. Perhaps I may go and speak with him.

Thanks for the input,
M....

K-Spaz

I'll give my two cents here and you can just disregard it all if you don't like it.

First, the entire AC system is really super simple and there's no reason to be apprehensive about working on it. The only trouble is, several of the parts are not very fun to replace. Furthermore, there is some diagnostic work to do that isn't easy without a Halon detector. Slow leaks are damn near impossible to find without the instrument and even with it, you almost have to have some experience at finding slow leaks before you can track them down.

A poster above mentioned putting some dye in the system and then looking for it with the ultraviolet light. That's a great idea and by a long shot it's the cheapest idea. The trouble is, if the leak isn't somewhere obvious then you're not going to find it. On my car I had an evaporator leak. It was a slow leak and it took multiple tries to find it even using the detector. I had to run the AC for 5 minutes without running the fan, turn the car off and let it sit for 10 minutes, then turn it back on and the fan blew the tiny bit of refrigerant out and the detector caught it and I then knew that the evaporator needed replaced. That's not very funny because that's the very first part they put on the build stand when they build the car and you have to remove the entire car to get to it. LOL

The gauges and the vacuum pump are available from Harbor Freight. You will probably spend less than $250 and if you use a super coupon you can save a bunch from that. You will have everything you need to do your own refrigerant work and I highly recommend getting the tools. They will pay for themselves on the very first time you take it to a shop to get the work done.

Anytime you're opening the system you should replace the dryer and the orifice tube. Both are fairly cheap. Some folks advocate buying a flushing kit and reverse flushing all of the system with a liquid cleaner. I have not done that but I understand the reasoning behind it. If one of your parts had a nuclear meltdown and sent pieces of metal through the system, that stuff is now waiting to go back through the system and wreck all your new parts.

Harbor Freight also sells a green refrigerant o-ring kit that pretty much covers all o rings on refrigerant systems. If you need O-rings they've got them in that for five bucks.

Try to do as much of the diagnosis yourself as you can. It is those hours which are going to kill you if you take it to a shop.