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Air Con not working Fiat Ducato


Tourope

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Just been on a trip down to Spain and realised as soon as it got hot the air con was not working in the cab. Wasn't such a problem as temperatures weren't that high.

 

I've attempted to look at the fuse but after taking the fuse cover off, the fuse for the air con is inaccessible (without removing significant other components above it which I don't feel qualified to do).

 

I'm thinking of calling a mobile air con company when I get home rather then taking it to Fiat, but would welcome suggestions from the forum before I do.

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I have had a number of air con problems over the years. Most have had to do with the belt and the pulley on the end of the compressor. They were easy to fix.

 

The worst one was a failure inside the heater matrix which involved the whole of the dash being pulled out and the very large heater housing being replaced (luckily under warranty).

 

First thing to check is that the pulley and belt are still intact.

 

Note. It is advisable to run your engine once a month if the vehicle is not being used, with the air con on for at least 10 minutes to help obviate problems.

 

Cheers

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Lots of garages offer air con servicing and repair, including specialist firms who should have extra skills. I’ve had a failed electro-mechanical clutch in the compressor unit (expensive) and simple leaks, which on one occasion led to replacing a specially shaped pipe (from Fiat, over £200) so unless it is a simple gas depressurisation, which only costs £50 to depressurise, brace yourself for a costly repair.
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We were about to set off for Spain on Monday, got in the van and switched the AC on... Nothing. I connected my gauges, the compressor was running and back pressure was steady at 30psi, but condenser fans not running. Turned out it had just lost enough gas to stop working. I just kept putting bits of gas in until the condenser fans ran continuously (I rememberd they used to run continuously)

 

If there's a click from under the bonnet when you press the AC button (with engine running) that's the clutch bringing the compressor in, so it might just need a gas top up, I think halfords sell it.

 

PS if you're doing it yourself, don't put too much gas in thinking it will work even better. Too much refrigerant in the system is REALLY bad for the compressor.

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Hello Campers,

 

As stated above, the most common reason for the air conditioning compressor to not be running is because the refrigerant has leaked and there is not sufficient pressure in the system. This is detected by a pressure sensor above the engine, close to the ports where connections are made for service and topping up. If a diagnostic device is connected to the vehicle, a fault code will exist for low AC pressure; which is also quite helpful.

 

The first thing to check is that the electrical plug to the connector is connected properly. Not likely to be a problem but it is so simple......

 

Next you should have a look underneath the offside front corner where the compressor is located. Wear some gloves because it can be pretty dirty down there but you first need to check that the drive belt is present. If it is; next you need to get hold of the shorter of the two pipes that exit the compressor. It is very, very common for this pipe to split or break. If it does so, all of your refrigerant will be lost. The good news is that this pipe is only a couple of feet long and is easy enough to replace because it only goes to the heat exchanger (in front of the coolant radiator). The longer pipe that makes it's way to the rear of the engine bay will only fail in an accident and this is good because it is much more difficult to replace.

If the pipes appear to be in good health, the next thing to do is to get the vehicle connected to an AC service machine. The first thing that these machines do is extract the old refrigerant and weigh it. The Ducato system holds 550g of R134a gas and if the amount extracted is in the region of 300 to 350g this would indicate a very minor leak and that over time this leak has caused the pressure to drop below the working threshold for the system and having the system vacuumed and refilled should be fine and would restore the system to full operation but if the quantity of gas removed is lower than 150g this suggests a leak that must be repaired before more refrigerant can be added. It is illegal to install R134a refrigerant in a system that you suspect has a leak to the atmosphere so other methods of leak detection such as Nitrogen or tracer gasses have to be used.

In all likelihood you will have either a leaking pipe from the compressor, a leaking O ring seal at the connections to the heat exchanger or the heat exchanger is leaking itself. The early examples of the X250 (from 2006) had a very poor design of mounting bracket on the heat exchanger which was very prone to leaking. Later versions and replacements have modified mounts.

Compressor problems are very rare indeed. I have never had to replace a compressor.

N

 

PS I should also add that the days of getting an air con service or re-gas for £40 are pretty much over. 18 months ago the price of R134a gas tripled and it is probably still climbing. It is officially being phased out and there is a limited supply available. It will become normal to be charged £50 or so for a check of the system but any gas that is required to top up your system will be charged for.

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I had my aircon serviced by my local garage last year at 4 years old. The entire process was automatic, a £7000 Bosch machine being connected-up, programmed with the correct information and left to do its job.

 

After the 4 years 500gr of the original 550gr (presuming that Sevel had filled it correctly) were extracted.

A very important phase is the leak test which lasted 20 minutes. The system was pulled down to deep vacuum and held. I can't recall the figure but it wasn't trivial, something like -10 bar, which also causes any moisture to boil off and be extracted.

The 500gr plus the 50gr top up were re-installed plus the lubricating oil topped-up at the same time.

I think it was about £75 which I thought reasonable considering the investment this small garage had made.

 

I've just had to replace the coolant radiator on mine which involves first swinging the fragile aircon condenser/radiator out of the way to do so. It was looking a bit ropey (due in most part to hail impacts when the van was nearly new) so later in the year I'll get the aircon serviced again but in 2 stages, first getting it de-gassed so that I can take it away and replace the £70 condenser prior to re-gassing.

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  • 3 years later...

On our 212 Boxer the aircon stopped working couple of garages could not fix it. Having a poke around I thought I would start the engine put the air con on and wiggle the relays. It was the middle one in the front row of 3, the only difference to you was our light to show it was on would light up. The light should show the clutch has power to it but if the gas is low there is another relay that stops it engaging. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

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