Greetings,

I have an annoying problem with the A/C on my '95 855 T5 wagon...

The A/C usually works fine - it gets damn cold when I need it cold, and toasty warm when I need it warm. At this time of year, cold is my preference, and I usually set it to minimum temperature (constant full blast cooling). The fan speed and air distribution are set to auto unless I'm demisting the windscreen.


On very rare occasions I *used* to have a situation where I'd get in the car and set the A/C to minimum temperature but the fan did not start blowing hard - it was still cooling but not at full blast, like it completely ignored the fact that I wanted full blast. I haven't had this for a while now though.

What I'm now seeing is that the A/C will be fine for the first 5-10 minutes of a journey, but on maybe 1 in 8 journeys the A/C will stop working - the fan is still blowing etc but it just starts pumping air at the external temperature, and in fact if I switch the A/C button off there is no change in temperature. I tried moving the temperature up and down - no change. I also tried setting fan speed to manual full blast - no change. I also tried setting air distribution to different settings (feet, face etc) - no effect.


I'm wondering if the above are related (maybe the 2nd situation is a later progression of the first situation) - maybe there is some sort of sensor that is starting to fail ?

Any suggestions what it could be, and whether I can fix it ???

I did mention this problem at the 120K service last week, but needless to say the A/C performed faultlessly with an engineer standing in readiness :-(

Regards.

Nick Pitfield (pitfield@nickpitfield.com).