With the help of youtube and forums I usually try to work on my own cars as they have developed issues and for better or worse my wife's fit has not had any issues. She has an 08 fit sport with about 115-120k miles on it. Recently as it has gotten warm she had been complaining that the ac has been taking a while to get cold. I bought some gauges and checked the pressure. It was a little low so I added some freon. Then I waited a couple of weeks to see if it leaked out. The pressure was still holding so I took it for a test drive around town and it took around 3-4 miles for it to get cold however once it gets cold though it will freeze you out. Everything I have found online tends to be the opposite with the ac working great at the beginning and then fading over time. The only other person I could find that had a similar issue was this person but they never replied back saying what it was. https://community.cartalk.com/t/hond...-problem/77241

I'd love to trying to fix this myself but never having worked on an ac I don't really have any clue on where to start. I can start the car and wait for the ac to start working. Then if I shut off the car and wait a few minutes the ac will start back up again without issue. If I shut off the car and wait an hour though it will need to warm back up again before the ac will kick on. That so far has been the only clue I have found as to what it might be. It seems to be related to if the engine is warm or not. Not knowing what to trouble shoot in this case I figured I'd come to the experts and ask the people who have the same car to see if anyone else has had this issue and if so what they did to fix it.

Thanks in advance.

 

Since I have some time today I'd figure I'd start running down some of the things I've learned.

1) For the 1st 5-10 minutes the ac clutch does not engage. After it starts working it works fine.
2) I am not getting the 12 signal to turn the ac on when the car first starts up. After a while it does and then ac kids on.

How long does it normally take the ac to turn on in a Fit? My wife was the primary driver but I don't recall the ac taking a while to start up and it doesn't in any of the other 3 cars we have.

 

Im dealing with this same issue right now. How did you end up fixing it?

 

In my case it turned out to be a relay that was starting to fail. Once I replaced that it started working correctly and knock on wood its been working since.

Hopefully that is what is wrong with yours. Good luck.

 

Ordered, replaced and fixed. Ironically, I ruled it out earlier since it passed my previous attempts at troubleshooting. Learned my lesson about relays. Thanks for circling back and sharing the advice.