Technical Help Air con not working

[porta]

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

This

 

[Burger2431]

We were told by an AC garage that the system needed to be re wired, the radio and the water wasn’t coming through for the wipers either so the said they rewired them as the wires were broken, we paid £100 for that then they told us the Air con still wasn’t working and we needed a new compressor and that would be another £580, at this point we decided to leave it as we didn’t get a good feeling from the place so we went back to our regular garage who are great, they already told us they weren’t Air con specialist but they can fit a new compressor if we were happy for them to do it we were also £200 less than the other place. It still didn’t work so they are going to have another look tomorrow for us and try another diagnostic check….on the other thread the girl said her temp was at 24 degrees so her air con was on constantly but actually is was only 5 degrees outside and her heater wouldn’t come on, her sensor and fuse needed replacing for the climate control so I’m wondering if that’s what’s wrong with ours, bit strange both ours aren’t working but neither is the Air con? I don’t know anything about cars unfortunately but I don’t want to get ripped off as we’ve spent a small fortune so far trying to fix this. Thanks for getting back to me I will tell the garage tomorrow what you have said

 

[Burger2431]

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

Yes I totally agree, I know nothing about cars so I’m relying on going somewhere that isn’t going to rip me off or just use guesswork meanwhile I’m out of pocket by hundreds of pounds so far and am no further forward. Tomorrow if my garage can’t find out what it is I’m going to try and find an Air con specialist but if I’m going to have to pay another £500 etc and It might not fix it then we’ll just need to leave it as we still have my wife’s car to repair.

 

[porta]

From what you’ve said, and lopes as an AC techy’, can’t help feeling you’ve been completely ripped off…
If you search through the forums for 500X in general, or aircon specifically there’s not much to hang on the ‘oh they’re well known for x/y/z…’ or ‘oh it’s a Fiat
All modern cars are much of a muchness, with many sharing components not just on their own diverse ranges but across diverse automotive groups

 

[AndyRKett]

When you have a car that needs a new clutch at 32K miles and new discs and pads as well, then I'd suggest that these cars have had a very hard life before you got them.

As per @Lopes3d above, why on earth would a low mileage car need rewiring. This in itself sets alarm bells ringing.

Hence why I suggested looking for a local small aircon specialist who actually knows what they are looking at.

 

[Burger2431]

That’s what we think too, we got them both from AC, I’ve of heard of dodgy dealers rolling mileage back, I’m not sure that’s even something that can be done now but I don’t believe for one minute that the amount of work and repairs both these cars needed had the correct mileage on them when we bought them. They should have been as good as new. They’re both falling apart and have so many issues. Both needed new clutches, all new disk and pads on my car, both radios and air con systems down. It’s never ending. Thank you all for your suggestions and advice, I need to try and find a reliable AC garage this week

 

[Burger2431]

Hi, I have been trying to get a background check done on my cars history and paid for a report from AA today and it says the plate was changed? There are no details or mileage I can find on this report going back to 2016 only from 2019 when we purchased the car? This is very odd?

 

[s130]

Hi, I have been trying to get a background check done on my cars history and paid for a report from AA today and it says the plate was changed? There are no details or mileage I can find on this report going back to 2016 only from 2019 when we purchased the car? This is very odd?

Well if you can do an MOT check on your current registration plate. Does this go bad before you took the car on?

Likewise do you have the previous registration info? You can check the MOT history for that as well.

Save / print all of this information because if there is some dodgy stuff going on you can confront the company you have the agreement with and take them to task.

 

[Lopes3d]

Hi, I have been trying to get a background check done on my cars history and paid for a report from AA today and it says the plate was changed? There are no details or mileage I can find on this report going back to 2016 only from 2019 when we purchased the car? This is very odd?

Is this because it would have been under 3 years old so didn’t require an MOT? Plate change could have been private during that time as well. HPI check gives the date when plates were changed over

 

[s130]

Is this because it would have been under 3 years old so didn’t require an MOT? Plate change could have been private during that time as well. HPI check gives the date when plates were changed over

Valid point re MOT but the OP said the cars were 2016 registered. So MOTs will have been mandatory from around 2019 which sadly coincides with the year that the OP acquired the vehicles. Still it is worth pulling all records one can!

 

[AndyRKett]

A proper HPI check (as suggested above) will give you the information you need, they should give you every number plate the car has ever had fitter and the dates when changed. They will also look for any dates stored for anything like any accidents or service mileages that were uploaded to national systems. Sometimes the milage is recorded when the car changes hands so it may show this too.

Sadly though for the first 3 years a car can be invisible, no MOT, servicing on new cars can be left for very long periods sometimes up to 20k miles, and dealerships don’t routinely do 6 month or 12 month inspections, the first time the dealership sees the car again could be 2 years after it’s sold and it the owners don’t care about the car very much then it can have a pretty hard life in that time. If the owners “miss” a single service then it could never have been looked at from new till the day the car was surrendered from its lease/PCP.

At this point it there is no reason to question the mileage so as long as everything looks reasonable on an inspection the car goes up for sale again.

I’d still get an HPI check they’re not very expensive £4-5 but it still may not show anything and doesn’t therefore prove anything

 

[timmycm850]

Hi all.

Can I ask what engine type you have in the pair of cars, do you have a flat driveway.

 

[s130]

The 500X service computer will pop up every 12 months regardless of mileage. When serviced by dealer / good independent then the service will be reset and the service coupon count reduced by one. The 500X has (like most other Fiats) 9 service coupons. The system records current odometer, distance after last service, last service date, number of services, service interval, service period, distance to next service and days to next service.

If a service is not done then the nag screen will eventually disappear but the counters will carry on.

An unscrupulous garage could just to 9 service resets to wipe out all the coupons. Not sure what happens to the counters after that.

Also the various nodes like Engine ECU, ABS, Body, Service, etc. also log mileage. Often there are differences on some vehicles (eg Croma 2005 engine ECU) which have never really been explained but these values can be used as a guide but are not definitive.

 

[arekp]

We recently had the A/C Compressor Clutch Coil replaced as AC stopped working. All good now.