A/C Occasionally Not Blowing Air

When you say you put the AC on nothing comes out you mean the fans not blowing air at all or you have there it's just not cold? If the air is blowing and it's not cold are you in maximum AC the temperature is set to low the fan is medium to high and what's coming out of the vent is ambient temperature from outside or what have you so then the next thing you do is lift the hood while this is all going on in park and you look at your compressor you should hear it running should be able to put your hand on it and feel it vibrating and working The fat line coming off the compressor should be getting cold as if you put your hand around it is starting to freeze and the thinner line should be getting warm Is any of that happening If so and no cold air is coming out your damper door is probably stuck to the position where it doesn't blow across the evaporator coil and that's not good if you keep letting it run like that it'll probably freeze up eventually or something along those lines. So you want to see if you're actually compressor running you're making cold there is a sight glass next to where you put in wiper fluid I believe and you should see bubbles in that when the compressor starts and then they should basically clear up if you have a constant stream of foam and bubbles in that window you're a little low on your charge but it should still work somewhat.

 

I don't remember the fan ever shutting down, even in "auto" mode. It changes speed and definitely temperature, but with the AC light on in the middle of winter it works as it should providing the right temperature air.

The inverter cooling system has nothing to do with interior air conditioning.

Just a hunch, but I did have Pontiac Vibes (shared things with Toyota) that failed to run on any fan speed other than full blast. It was a resistor that failed and no longer allowed the lower speeds to work, it was either high or nothing. I would experiment with what works and what doesn't.

Go out of auto mode and select a temp that should heat, work through all the speeds manually. Change it to a temp that should cool and again find out what fan speeds work.

 

The inverter not being cooled correctly can make the air conditioning not come on or shut down or be erratic usually shuts it off so the compressor can't engage. Being that it's cold in a lot of places in the country wouldn't think this would be a problem.

 

I was thinking more about the fluid, but it kind of makes sense that if you electrical demands are high and the inverter is not operating as it should there could be a connection.

 

When the inverter gets overheated because if it's not being cooled by the fluid not being pumped or what have you then the inverter throttles back it's power output and in my experience one of the first things it cuts is the air conditioning that's a huge 200 DC volt load or whatever the air conditioner requires HV battery power and quite a bit of it I've had this happen to me twice or thrice I can't remember but as soon as I unplug the air conditioning take that load off of the system everything goes back to working fairly normally unless it's extremely hot out then it will start cutting back the charging that it does so it doesn't overheat the charging system and or inverter at least that's how it seems. Here it sounds like you may not have a door opening to let the fan blow across the cold if that's the case be careful with that if it's real hot out that evaporator will freeze because there's no air blowing across it to heat it up to keep it from freezing and keep you cool.

 

Is the fan working at all speeds and every time tested without the AC on? Is it a dying fan motor that needs to be replaced?