Air Conditioner: blows hot this season

[NJDad]

Anyone else have trouble with the air conditioner?

Ours blows hot this season, sometimes not, but when it does it kinda defeats the purpose of A/C. (2nd summer with car).

[DaveG]

Your post is a little vague... It would help us to know the temperature outside, what you have the climate control set to (temperature and settings). It would also help if you told us the model year of the car.

If it's blowing warm air when it should be cold, it's possible that the A/C coolant has leaked out of the system if it was damaged (another report of this a month or so back was caused by a puncture in the AC condenser).

If in doubt, take it to the dealer to get them to check it.

Mine was handling 40c (105f) temperatures in California last summer without any problems at all.

Dave

[NJDad]

I live in Northern NJ where we're in about day 7 of a summerish heat wave. We're looking to cool the intensely hot air in the car. At some points, no matter what the setting, the air comes out hot even after you've been tooling about long enough to have cool air. Sometimes it works, though, which makes you think it's not a coolant leak or we'd never have cool air.

[tochatihu]

NJDad, what year Prius do you have? Air cond. function was substantially modified starting with the 2004 model.

[Tideland Prius]

Is it safe to assume you blew the hot air out of the car first with the windows down?

Hmm, yes. We need more info please.

[NJDad]

It's a 2004. Blew the hot air out with windows open. Today took about a 15 mile round trip. No cold air for almost entire trip there-some coolish air but no relief from the 90+ temps outside.

Way back, normal A/C... such that my fear is we take it to the shop and they tell us there's nothing wrong with it.

I'm guessing with all the questions noone else has had this trouble, so just my luck I suppose.

[richard schumacher]

Mine keeps the cabin at 72 during the day in Dallas when it's 100 outside. Either that dealer is lying, or you're not using it right. If you have not already done so read the owner's manual carefully. If you still can't get it to do what you want ask your dealer for a demo. If *that* doesn't work, go to another dealer for service.

[jayman]

If I set my climate page on dash vent, the fan speed one notch higher than medium, and the temp on Max Cold, my Prius will freeze me out within 5 minutes. The A/C in the Prius is ice cold if it's working properly.

The service ports are very easy to get at under the hood. Why doesn't the dealer just hook up the gauge to see if the charge is correct?

[GeekyDragon]

I'm sure this is too obvious, but the A/C button is lit right?

I've had a few friends who assumed that when you decreased the temp using the steering wheel adjustments, that the A/C would autoamtically click on.

--GD

[rcroft]

What do you set the temperature to? If, for instance, you set it high, like at 78 degrees, then when you first got into your car, the air conditioner would blow very cold because the temperature inside your car is 100 degrees or so. However, once it reduced the temperature to 78 degrees, the vents would blow only slightly cool air to maintain the desired temperature.