

In the best-case scenario, your A/C compressor will stop working if you don’t have enough refrigerant in your A/C system, and at this point, you’ll want to add some!Ī/C compressors can accumulate dust, grime, dirt, lubricants, and grit from being in the engine bay.

What Causes an A/C Compressor to Stop Working? Just make sure that the accessory belt has tension and the compressor wheel isn’t wobbling out of balance. If you don’t care about air conditioning, just don’t need it, or can’t afford to fix it right now, don’t sweat it (lol). There won’t be any draw on the engine, and no resistance to create excess friction. You can definitely drive with a faulty air compressor, as it will just be a pulley at that point. Can You Drive With a Faulty A/C Compressor?

If you aren’t that handy yet with a wrench, or you’d rather spend the money to save time, you’ll need to fork over anywhere from $300-$900 for labor as some cars have more accessible air compressor than others. If you can do the work yourself, add shipping on top of that price, factor 3-4 hours of your time, patience, bloody knuckles, and you’ll come up with a pretty good idea of what investment this project will take.Įven better call a buddy, buy a six-pack and do it together, six feet apart of course (COVID season), and you’ll have a much better time. At Advanced Auto Parts and Autozone, you might get out the door paying $150, but I don’t really like the generic Denso/Duralast variants if there’s any possibility you can get OEM. With a bit of searching on the internet, I came up with $150-$180 for the A/C compressor part itself for my 2004 Toyota Sequoia on PartsGeek or RockAuto. You’ll all want to know: “How much will this cost me?” Here’s a good video example of what a broken air compressor sounds like:īest places to order parts? See: 19 Best Online Auto Parts Stores On the other hand, when talking about your compressor, interesting noises are NOT a good sign, especially when they only occur during air conditioning operation.

Related: 8 Reasons Why Your A/C Is Not Blowing Cold Air #2 – Strange NoiseĪs with most car-related issues, a noise is usually the sign of something moving where it shouldn’t (unless you’re talking about your buddy’s turbocharged, six rotor RX-7, HA) This could be due to a leak in your conditioning system, but more than likely it’s due to a faulty compressor, so you’ll want to check that out.
Air compressor replacement full#
It could be gradual, and you may not notice it at first, but sooner or later you will be sweating like a pig in your Toyota and have the A/C on full blast on hot summer day. There are several symptoms of a bad compressor, and they may not all be apparent upon initial inspection, so I want to go through them all: #1 – The Car Won’t Blow as Cold as It Once Did To summarize, you’ll need a compressor that runs in order to get cold air in the cockpit of your sick 1999 Honda Accord 😉 Bad A/C Compressor Symptoms And it’s DEFINITELY an item you’ve lusted over during a hot summer’s day in a car with no air conditioning. The compressor looks like a belt-driven, engine-mounted, pulley-lookin’ thing that you’ve most definitely seen if you’ve spent any time under the hood. The compressor in your car is very similar.Ī plate inside (called a “wobble plate”) is rotated around a central axis, taking low-pressure air and pushing it out through a smaller hole than it came in, creating a higher pressure, higher temperature gas to go through the air condenser, making usable liquid with which to cool your sweaty pits!Īn oversimplification of course, but you get the picture! If you want more details about how a car air conditioner compressor works, check out this video. Think about it like high school chemistry class as gas is compressed, the molecules are forced closer together where they move faster, generating heat. The A/C compressor exists solely to transform low pressure, low-temperature gas to high pressure, and consequently high-temperature gas. The refrigerant you use to “recharge” your A/C needs to turn from a gas to a liquid to a gas over and over endlessly to cool you down as you drive. In order to get sweet, cold air pumping through your vents onto your sweaty brow, your air conditioning system needs to go through its processes. What Causes an A/C Compressor to Stop Working?.Can You Drive With a Faulty A/C Compressor?.#1 – The Car Won’t Blow as Cold as It Once Did.
Air compressor replacement pdf#
The manual can be accessed here, or if you would like the pdf version, you can download it below.
Air compressor replacement how to#
Where to buy Air Suspension Compressor? Check out the links below.Īrnott Industries has also put an excellent guide on how to install and change the AirMatic air compressor unit on a Mercedes-Benz.
