Technical Help Air con not working

[Burger2431]

Hi, just looking for a bit of advice, we have two Fiat 500x and both air con systems have packed in. We got one checked and were told it needed re wired and a new condenser, we did this at a cost of £650 and just had it re gassed today and it’s still not working. Just looking for a bit of advice really? These have been the worst cars we have ever had. Constant faults and have cost us thousands of pounds to fix. Both fans now seem to be broken, had anyone else had this issue? Any help appreciated

 

[timmycm850]

Good afternoon.

Sorry not sure if you could have poor mechanics as they seem to not be able to fix your car properly, I would take it straight back to them and insist they regas for free and get it working as you have paid them to fix the issue.

Have you been running the aircon weekly since you got the cars, are the fan switches behaving the same, please fill us in on the ages of the cars too.

Fill us in on a bit of purchase and running history too.

 

[timmycm850]

On the 500x, how do you turn on the aircon system, please give photo of controls

 

[AndyRKett]

My best advice for you is to contact a local aircon specialist, the smaller the company the better, then you’ll get someone who actually knows what they are doing.

Aircon is both very simple and complex, most mechanics in garages especially chain stores, have no idea what they are doing beyond connecting the re-gas machine and pressing the button or changing the condenser.

Realistically it may need someone to plug in and see what’s going on, it may be the pressure sensor has failed or they may have over filled the system so it is detecting the pressure is too high, unfortunately it’s not something that you can likely diagnose over the internet

 

[porta]

As Timmy says, it sounds more like bad/wrong/throw-money-at-it repairs rather than the car
What other repairs have you had done?

 

[Burger2431]

Hi, thank you all for getting back to me, my wife and I both got a Fiat 500x in 2019 the cars were both 2016 plates. Mines had only 14k miles and my wife’s 16k, last year I needed a new clutch having only done a total of 32k and the car being 6 years old at this point. Both Air con systems and radios are now not working and I now need all new disc plates too. My wife needs a new clutch also and her air con system fixed. It’s quite difficult to find an air con specialist but we did go to a garage and was told after doing the diagnostics that it needed re wired and a new compressor, we paid £100 for the wiring to be fixed but didn’t get a good feeling about the place so we took it to our regular garage who fitted the new compressor, Halfords re gassed it for us today and said the fan isn’t engaging? Mines is only blowing hot air the wife’s is blowing cool ish but nowhere cold. We then took it back to the garage this afternoon and was told the fan was working as the car would overheat if it wasn’t and because the Air con light flashes a few times they think it’s maybe an electrical fault so I’ve to take it back round tomorrow. The cars are due to get handed back in Nov as they are leased but this will have cost me £2150 in the last 6 months once I get the breaks done next week and we also need to get my wife’s clutch fixed too which is another £1000. We’re haemorrhaging money trying to keep them on the road and the thought of paying another £1700 for the wife’s car to hand them back is sickening. We’ve never had such problems as this with previous cars and considering neither has done a lot of miles we seem to have been so unlucky with these. I think if the system can’t be fixed tomorrow we will need to just leave it as we can’t afford to throw another £400/500 pounds away and it doesn’t get fixed. Any suggestions on what it could be would be helpful although I know it could be anything at this point! Both cars have been re gassed, along with a new compressor and re wired but still blowing hot air.

 

[chris3234]

If there's anyone near by with mutiecuscn they may be willing to connect it up and see if the system shows any faults as to why the lights flashing

 

[timmycm850]

Morning all.
I'm not sure if I understand this correctly. If you leased the cars is it the responsibility of the lease company to deal with repairs.
Check your contract!

 

[timmycm850]

Both cars have aircon/ radio issues. Also heavy clutch and brake wear, do you live on a small sunny island?

 

[porta]

Just hand them back and walk away, it sounds like you were leased pups, were ripped off at garages, who didn’t know what they were doing, and charged you for the pleasure. It certainly seems like you were unfortunate to get the ‘fit this, fit that’ brigade…there are plenty of decent aircon specialists out there…

 

[chris3234]

Morning all.
I'm not sure if I understand this correctly. If you leased the cars is it the responsibility of the lease company to deal with repairs.
Check your contract!

Probably PCP rather then lease my guess?

 

[Burger2431]

Yes it’s PCP sorry if that wasn’t clear, I feel like we’ve taken on two cars that were fixed up tbh, it’s almost like they were much older than they were with all the faults they have. The air con this morning is blowing slightly cool air as opposed to yesterday where it was just hot. I have someone coming out today, they’re going to do a diagnostic check for faults? When you press the air con button the orange light flashes three times then stays on? I wish we stayed in a sunny island but no it’s Glasgow! If this doesn’t bring anything up today I am going to call a couple of Air Con garages tomorrow but I’m not willing to throw much more money away, they’re not worth it.

 

[timmycm850]

Have you been using the aircon all year.

 

[Burger2431]

No, we just took it to get re gassed at Halfords in March and was told the pressure was dangerously high so to get it checked out. The other Fiat we took last month and Halfords told us the same thing.

 

[timmycm850]

We had a 2005 panda 1.2 with aircon. We used the aircon weekly to ensure the fluid kept moving( it clears windscreen really quick in winter) 18 years of regular use and still working. Maybe this is a useful tip to everyone to keep aircon working. Just sold the car with working aircon at 104k miles

 

[chris3234]

No, we just took it to get re gassed at Halfords in March and was told the pressure was dangerously high so to get it checked out. The other Fiat we took last month and Halfords told us the same thing.

That sounds more like they don't know what they are doing with the cat


The odds of both cars having excess pressure seem very unlikely to me

 

[Burger2431]

That’s what we thought, this seems to be a common fault with Fiat 500x so I’ve been told, hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of it

 

[Burger2431]

I found this on another thread and I’m wondering if this is what’s wrong in both cars. The Celsius above the speedometer is sitting in both cars at —•C they’re not reading anything. Below is what the other thread said as this was affecting the persons Air con.
Update... had new mirror assembly fitted. Temp display now back to normal and so is the aircon. For those that are interested the outside temp sender has an effect on the aircon when set to auto. When the outside temp was showing 40 to 50 deg aircon on auto was really not working properly and unable to clear moisture from screen etc. Now sender fixed auto aircon works perfectlY

 

[Lopes3d]

As an AC engineer I’m surprised something needed to be re-wired, what exactly did they need to change? Also 2 garages saying too high pressure suggests the condenser fan isn’t coming in and it’s cut out on HP, not sure if these 500’s have a separate temp switch to activate the fan. There’s not a lot of garages out there that know too much in terms of re-gassing them they’ll just hook up the lines press a button and let it do it’s thing.

Realistically they shouldn’t ever need to be “topped up” if it is needed the gas has escaped and oil in the system is lost. If it is low it may be worth looking into getting some dye into the system to see exactly where it is coming out of

 

[porta]

That’s what we thought, this seems to be a common fault with Fiat 500x so I’ve been told, hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of it

This I don’t understand, the wife has a renegade and the system is near identical, only the way it looks is different…we’ve never had any issue with the aircon, not even had to top it up since new (2016).
If you look on the US renegade forums the ‘standard’ issue was that the systems were not charged from new, (pre 2017) but the dealers didn’t know they were shipped like that so didn’t ‘recharge’ the systems. Why the hell they didn’t check their operation on PDI is anyone’s guess!
This issue wasn’t repeated in the UK and I can only find issues related to bad servicing/repairs by aircon agents, the wrong refrigerant being common, pipes and valves damaged and the usual ‘specialists’ with no product knowledge.
There is no substitute for good dealers, and their staff, and definitely no substitute for product knowledge. We now seem to have ‘fitters’ who fit this and that and, by a process of illumination, just hi upon an effective repair