GTV 1998 how cold is the air conditioner ? is my unit faulty or is this normal ?

[sudman]

Hi,

I purchased a second hand 1998 GTV 3.0L and I was wondering if I might have a air cond problem ?
The GTV has standard type aircon (not climate control)
When stationary (in traffic) and at idle the air conditioner coldness is barely there (if at all). As soon as the car moves the air gets colder. Thus when I test drove the car the air cond seemed OK but at idle it seems poor.
  Maybe my compressor is cutting out at idle or something like that ?

but it might also be an alfa feature as well ?

From other owners of GTVs and spiders from 1998 to around 2000 is the air cond reasonably cool to cold when the car is at idle or in traffic at slow speeds?

regards

sudman


UPDATE:
Thought I would share what I found. My local auto aircond place checked the gas etc and all was OK. According to them the poor cooling ability was due to the electric cooling fans not operating while the compressor was running. I knew my cooling fans did work but only when the engine coolant hit the 90 degrees. Anyhow the air cond system was reaching high pressures due to the lack of cooling of the refrigerant. The sensor switch was working but for some reason my wiring/circuits did not allow the fans to come on. Anyhow the auto electrician solution was to bypass the lot with a relay which turns on the fans when the compressor is running. Not to happy about this BUT the air cond works much better.

In the meantime I have identified a fair bit of dodgy wiring due to some sort of previous fault or acciient which damaged the wiring loom. I have since pulled all of the wiring loom apart identified the previous errors, rewired the lot and removed the previous poor quality work. It all now works according to the original design with 2 speed engine cooling fans, delay timer works as well and I have nice cool air cond.   yeah ha

[Jekyll and Hyde]

Air con will usually be a bit colder at higher engine speeds, as the compressor is being turned over faster, therefore circulating more refrigerant.  However, to have as noticeable difference as you seem to, I'd suggest it may need the gas in the system replaced.   That would be my most likely suspect for this particular problem you've described.

Whether the gas is not as good as it originally was, or whether its lost a little bit causing a drop in pressures in the system, you won't know until its been hooked up to an A/C service machine and checked out.

[Scott Farquharson]

Will most likely need a re-gas - easy and relatively cheap - check local auto a/c providers - there may even be a mobile one who can come to you

[spieret]

I have the same model GTV and my air-con makes it like a freezer in the cabin, i rarely have it more than speed 1, it's usually on speed 0. and after a while i have to turn the heat up or i freeze my ass off. I would agree , check the gas.

Cheers