Erratic AC behavior

obafunque1

My 2012 Toy. Avalon with 60K miles is having an erratic AC behavior. Sometimes and suddenly the cooling process stop and few minutes later start working again. I have noticed that the problem occur when the car is on high idle ( more than 55 mph) but occasionally happen at less mph. I was told that this may be caused for lack of refrigerant so I found a friend of mine that tried to recharge the system and after was done the AC continue working the same. I live in Texas and afraid to go to the dealer for a diagnosis because they will rip me off my pocket.
Is anyone on this forum with the same situation? An if so, what was the solution.
Thanks to all,
Obafunque1

thecardoc3

obafunque1 said:

My 2012 Toy. Avalon with 60K miles is having an erratic AC behavior. Sometimes and suddenly the cooling process stop and few minutes later start working again. I have noticed that the problem occur when the car is on high idle ( more than 55 mph) but occasionally happen at less mph. I was told that this may be caused for lack of refrigerant

Well the first person to stop listening to is the one who thought that the system working OK some of the time but then randomly stopping could be low on refrigerant. Even so, proper testing would prove if that was the case and should have been done before attempting to charge the system. The initial suggestion is this is a control issue and right now we don't even know if it is an AC system issue or an internal airflow issue.

obafunque1 said:

so I found a friend of mine that tried to recharge the system and after was done the AC continue working the same. I live in Texas and afraid to go to the dealer for a diagnosis because they will rip me off my pocket.

There are a lot of shops that can handle AC diagnostics. When you make an appointment explain the symptom you are experiencing in detail. Do not tell them what you or someone else thinks is wrong, however you should tell them that you tried to charge the system with no change in its operation. At this point it is possible that the system charge is incorrect now no matter what as over-charged can cause problems just like being undercharged can. As far as what it costs to have the system tested that takes time to do correctly and the shop be it the dealer or otherwise needs to be successful as a business or else they wouldn't be there to do this for you. You should expect to have the system tested and the failure diagnosed for a fee inside some given range and then the repair estimate provided. At that point you could then decide how to proceed.

obafunque1 said:

Is anyone on this forum with the same situation? An if so, what was the solution.
Thanks to all,
Obafunque1

What solved an issue for another person's vehicle no matter how similar it may sound has no bearing on what is going on with your car. Every vehicle failure needs to be diagnosed on it's own.

obafunque1

Thanks for your observation. I will find a professional AC shop t properly diagnose the problem.