A very good but complicated explanation.. in other words just forget it and give him the money to fix it.. too bad he's not in San Jose.. if you did it would cost $250 to get in the door.
More great info. I'm surprised the Toyota engineers let the compressor run with such a low charge. Quite an eye opener now I'm using temerature clamps on various parts of the system. It really let's you see what's going on. Just a matter of time before it destroys itself.
Most cars manufactures allow the compressors to run extremely low on refrigerant. Before the safety finally cuts it off just like the old idiot lights on the dash when you would overheat on the side of the road and possibly blow a head gasket after the damage was done
Searched the web for days and found your thoughtful Prius AC videos. Our 2006 Prius has great AC most of the time but consistently will die after being in traffic for a while. It always works fine, even on a long highway trip, but once you slow down and get in bad traffic it will quit entirely and won't come back until it cools down completely. Really would appreciate any suggestions, Thanks
Look for one fan not coming on. Possibly both fans. If that is not the case then could have possibly been overcharged even by 1 to 3 ounces with not enough airflow over the condenser can make the high side head pressure sore to over 440 psi cutting off the safety switch to kill the AC. At idle with only the fans pushing over the air may not be enough to keep the condenser temperature down lowering the head pressure but at a higher highway speed may just be barely enough to keep the head pressure under 400 psi giving you cooling. A little more rare air contamination in with the refrigerant if it was recycled refrigerant that was used from a recovery recycle recharge machine. Raising the head pressure under only certain circumstances on hot days when you don’t have enough flow of air over the condenser at idle but going down the highway at 55 miles an hour you have more airflow and that just might make the difference of keeping the airflow and temperature and pressure of the condenser under the point where the safety cut off cut off the AC. Could be other things but those are the first that jump out low hanging fruit
Very interesting indeed. Begs the question...Why would the Relevant control module (climate, Hvac, ECM whatever it is on the Prius) algorithm allow the compressor to operate under such parameters??? Head scratcher.
t lech Understood. But you would think with all the innovation in the Prius a little more oversight of its systems would not be a big ask...Just a thought. 🤔
TheGibby3340 I forgot to mention this is what you find out when you have the instrumentation I know the methods to test every vehicle you work on. You can actually document and data log all the information. This is all the kind of stuff that you were taught when you go to automotive school take engineer in classes or when you take thermal dynamics and fluid dynamics in HVAC School. This is a problem with her industry to work on cars there’s no requirements to know what you’re doing just keep breaking stuff until you learn that is the common practice. Now take the same mentality and apply it to being a doctor just keep killing your patients until they start living. Or aviation mechanics just keep practicing on fixing planes until they stop falling out of the sky.
TheGibby3340 anything that cost more than one penny cost too much for a manufacture to put something extra on a vehicle. Just like your engine oil in your coolant if you don’t keep it up to the right level you burn up an engine if you don’t maintain your refrigerant and don’t keep it up and service it you burn up your compressor. If a customer doesn’t keep the air pressure up on their tires they blow up their tire. It all comes down to maintainance and awareness. Of course some of the newer Mercedes in the last 10 years and old Cadillacs had a feature when they would since the refrigerant level was too Low for a long period of time the ECM would disable the output to the clutch permanently. Until the customer took it into a shop to clear the ECM code and correct the low refrigerant problem. This is what should be implemented on vehicles today. I’m gonna try to remember to take more before and after temperature readings of the compressor discharge line pictures worth 1000 words and some people don’t believe in less they see. That falls back to lack of education and why most mechanics or mechanics because they don’t read don’t like to read can’t do math this is a majority and I was a D and F student when I was in school did not like reading did not like math I am no exception to the rule. Usually always failed any written test I took. But yet in science class I could do any of the projects out of my head pick up any of the lab equipment put a gather perform any of the experiments. When the ace students were fumbling around asking questions who would always get A’s on the test and they could remember everything they read would always come over to my table to ask me how to do something. But yet when the teacher would put a piece of paper for the final I usually always got an F or a D. But I had a father who is relentless at beating in the basics of physics and electronics science and chemistry all the way down to the molecular level from childhood just not written on a piece of paper
This information is fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing and educating. I took my 2008 Prius to the dealer, AC wasnt cold anymore, they said the compressor is shot. They wanted $1800 to replace compressor, evap and fill. I plan on buying a new compressor, installing and having them evap and fill. How would i locate someone like yourself in my area, to diagnose?
Usually a place that just specializes in radiators and air conditioning only. But this still does not guarantee that they had good training or work ethics. Unfortunately some shops are just about the money and selling lots of parts even if they’re not needed or causing them to break. Possibly you could go on the MACS website stands for Mobil Air Conditioning society actually they just change their name recently but the initials are still MACS. And search for somebody on their members list in your area at least that means they’re interested and they signed up and hopefully have went to some of the expos in classes.
@@troylollysaf9311 compressor not needed for driving. But in a vary hot summer 100F day the fan in the passenger compartment likes cooler air to help keep the hybrid battery cool.
@@coldfinger459sub0 Thank you. I dont have money to replace AC compressor yet but need to drive prius to work. Glad to know broken AC wont overheat my prius.
Probably did it’s been too long I was eight months ago I don’t remember. I service 6 to 8 cars every day so I’ve done AC service over 1000 cars since the time of this video cannot remember them all.
