(T) Imformation regarding?

The air con system on the abarth. As mine doesn't seem to be getting that cold anymore I asked one of the mechanics at work about it. He said that as the weather is really hot & muggy at the moment, it won't feel that cold anyway. Apparently people make the mistake that airconditioning should make your car fridge like at all time, this is not so, if the outside air temp is above 30oc then the aircon will only bring the temp inside the car down by 10-12oc. In response to a couple of threads recently I'm posting this so people don't panic & automatically think there's something wrong. Also the aircon should be serviced & regassed every 2 years regardless of mileage.

dunno bout that.had a nissan sunny(dont laugh)when i lived in germany and it could get the cabin ice cold on a really hot day. though my last cavvy had aircon which hardly did anything though it could have been in need of servicing

That's complete rubbish!!!! It's been 40ºC here all day and around 35ºC for the past month or so and my stilo blows out cold air by just having the climate control on 20ºC. If i bring it down to 19, 18, 17, 16 or put it on low i'm sure i could get frost bite in my car or freeze a pizza, or have a penguin or...... well, you get the idea!!!!!

My AC has still given lovely cold air throughout our "summer"

Oh I see! you know more than a car mechanic of 20 years experience do you? It isn't rubbish aircon systems only drop to a certain set temp.

I would trust experience, of course like any refridgeration, the maximum achievable will only be x degrees below ambient, however, i think the point is that stilo MJ is saying he still gets very cold air despite the heat, as do I.

The point of this thread was not about recieving cold air or not( did anybody actually read my original post) the point is that there have been past threads in which people expressed concerns that their aircon wasn't working when it actually is. So effectively what I'm saying is that the outside ambient air temp WILL make a difference to how the condensor will perform.

I have always found this to be that case...99% of the time, mine gets really cold, but on the hottest of summer days, it doesn't get anywhere near as cold.

(mind you, doesn't get cold at all at the mo seeing as though its broken!!!)

My AC over the Ex-hot weekend was excellant as ever, It might be that you haven't got the right amount of refridgerant in your system, and as it was really hot, it would struggle to perform (no pun intended ).

I would get a full recovery/recycle procedure carried out, that way you'll see how much comes out, and whether its the right amount, and if theres any leaks.

Aw, I want my car back The cra**y Yaris has no aircon nor any power, come to think of that

The aircon isn't working if you don't get cold air out, regardless of outside temp, the feeling of cold is relative hence on a hot day, say 35 degrees, the air may be 22 but feel very cold, but on a 20 degrees day it might be 12 degrees but still feel cold.

The feeling of hot and cold is due to heat transfer between your hand (say) and the moving air through forced conduction in this case.

Hence if it doesn't feel cold there could be something up. Mine went weird the other day and I was worried, but a restart of the engine fixed it.

So your mechanic is right, of course it will only cool a certain level lower than the ambient, however, if it is working, it will always feel cold to your hand since it cools it relative to the ambient.

I didn't mean that the mechanic that has 20 years experience doesn't know whet he's talking about... all i'm saying is that i've tried my climate control at very high temperatures (at least 40ºc) and i've easily managed to make the car uncomfortably cold (this means for me (i'm a hot guy (no sexual comments please)) that the tmp is 18 or 19ºC at lest) so though maybe the aircon has it's limitations due to ambient temperature the capacity goes far beyond 10 or 12 ºC.

An expert born every minute? Benny you are quite correct, average is 10-12 a really top notch system can do 15 but not more, also it depends on fan speed, to get the lowest temp drop put the fan on slow speed, to allow heat transfer to occur. Putting the fan on max doesnt allow the heat to be removed from the air as it passes over the evaporator too quickly. Finally use recirc so you are recooling air inside the cabin to drop the temp and then you can open recirc to maintain fresh air.

Thankyou! someone who actually knows what they are talking about! Cheers mate.

You're welcome