A/C Failure

Rats. On the way to work this afternoon about 5 miles out of town the A/C starts getting warm. No noises or other indications of failure. Pulled over after a couple miles and cycled the vehicle off and ready. Opened the hood and listened. The radiator fans were cycling on and off. Maybe a rattle from the compressor area. At work I checked the engine room fuses, 50A (1) appears good and 10A (16) also. I have an appointment with my dealer service 9 am tomorrow morning. The vehicle was a Toyota Certified resell, but I'm wondering how much warranty is left at 80K miles. This is beginning to sound expensive.

 

I believe that 100K is for major drivetrain and hybrid system components. I don't see anything in the coverage for A/C compressor.

Edit: Dealer has determined that the compressor is faulty, but the exact nature of the problem (DTC) is not known. Yet. Recommendation is replacement. A new one is $1800 (whew ...) but my service writer was able to locate a used unit from a 2011 with 47k miles for $650. No warranty, but the price is right. Should be able to get the part in the shop by this Monday and installed on Wednesday next week. I'll just have to tough it out in this heat for a couple more days. I wonder what the fault code will be? As I am driving the car I will continue to cycle the A/C on and off and maybe get it to store a code.

 

I do plan on requesting and receiving a cause of failure before the work of replacing it begins. I expect there will be some sense of urgency to get on with the work, to avoid the issue of what really went wrong. I am ready for that. I've got all day. I don't think an explanation would be unreasonable, given the cost of this failure. I would think Toyota should know about it too. Isn't this the process toward development of a TSB or recall? I have contacted corporate before with good results. I think they will be hearing from me again.

 

Yes. Unusual that. Maybe they have relaxed their posture on new and used parts and liability. Maybe the A/C is exclusive in that little else could be collaterally damaged if the used compressor were to fail. So many questions. The service writer didn't act very clandestine about it either. No wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I'm pretty happy about it. What would make me even happier is if they discover the real problem during disassembly, bad electrical or sensor connection or the like.

 

I don't expect a TSB or recall from this. What I said is this is how that process starts, with a failure in the field. Or a number of them, which would provide even more support. Dealer service can be shifty, hence the term stealership. I will be making sure that my failed part is at least inspected and a failure process determined. And you're right, there haven't been many compressor failures in the Gen III.

Edit: Was able to run a "chicken dance" diagnostic on the A/C (Thanks frodoz737 for the shop manual extract) and came up with a code. Not a good one. It says there is an A/C Inverter Load System Malfunction (code 76). This can be caused by a refrigerant leak or overfill, a problem in the condenser fan circuit, or lastly a compressor lock. The keystrokes for this test are start from ACC mode (power on without brake), hold down AUTO and Recirculate/Fresh Air buttons, and press START again. Should see A/C LCD and all LED lights blink 4 times at 1 second interval followed by a code displayed where the preset temperature (digits on left side of LCD) are normally displayed. A 00 code means no problems. Then press OFF to escape.

 

It's an excerpt of the Toyota shop manual for the 2010 model year (Gen III) covering the A/C system, and those were the four possibilities for that DTC. And there are further diagnostics listed in the code breakout, things like checking the static manifold pressure which I'm not sure has been done yet. When I brought it in for service, their first diagnosis was refrigerant loss so they attempted to bypass the low refrigerant failsafe. They couldn't get the compressor to cycle back on to take in more refrigerant and a leak detecting dye. So it is sort of pointing to the compressor being at fault.

I wish. I believe it was covered under the original 36 month/36K miles and specifically not in the Toyota Certified Pre-Owned warranty. Maybe I'll do a search then.

 

Discovered something new. I was looking over the CarFax I got with purchase because I remembered seeing something about the air conditioning. In March 2013 the previous owner reported the A/C not working. System was low on refrigerant and was evacuated and recharged, including a leak detecting dye. No mention of a leak being discovered and repaired later though. That was 51K miles ago. I'll pass that info to the service tech. Vehicle was already checked last Thursday for any visible signs of leakage. Nothing obvious.

 

Compressor replaced, system evacuated and recharged. Tech said no debris noted in system flush. Cooling quite nicely now. New (used) compressor sounds quieter. I asked about what would be done with my old compressor and they said it would be returned as a core. Not torn apart to see what caused the failure. They might have done that if the failure occurred within the 3 year/36K mile warranty period. Parts just fail as someone already said.