Hello all, I have a 2009 Fit Sport with 31,000 miles on it. This weekend, I took it short vacation (few hundred miles). On the way back, I noticed that the AC wasn't blowing as cold as it normally is. Granted, the Fit's AC wasn't the coldest to begin with, but it used to cycle on and off it seems between decently cool and ice cold air. Now it's just the decently cool air. It was 81 degrees out and sunny, and even with 20% tint all around it was uncomfortably warm in the car. Right before I noticed that it wasn't working right, I could see the cold air coming out of the two middle vents (you know how on some hot days, the AC is so cold you can actually see it coming out of the vents looking almost like steam?). Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. I was wondering if maybe it just needed to be recharged, or maybe it has a leak. I can't imagine it being a big problem with only 31,000 miles on the car. I put wire mesh in front of the condenser in the front bumper at about 5,000 miles, so damage to that should be an issue. Help me please!

 

The easiest and quickest thing to do is to take it in to someone that recharges automotive AC systems. They can throw a set of gages on it and see what you have going on. These days most places do not use gages any more but rather they use an automated AC machine. The machine will suck out all of the refrigerant (R-134), apply a vacuum to the system to remove any moisture and check for leaks, and then recharge the system by refrigerant weight.

If you are an amateur like me, then you do it by pressure using gages and a thermometer in the AC vent. Then you compute what the correct pressures should be based on outside air temperature and inside vent temperature.

The machines are expensive but all but the dumbest techs can use one and not screw up.

 

Take it to Pep Boys for an A/C checkup for $50ish. They'll check the pressures and relays.

Relay bad? Could be the compressor cutting out. Pressures too high or too low? Could be a leak or some dummy used an off-the-shelf A/C recharge kit and put too much in. The latter is exactly what I discovered with my barely used Fit a few days ago.

Either way Pep Boys will use the diagnostic charge toward fixing the problem. My solution involved a full purge and refrigerant refill, costing about $120. On a humid 90 degree day, this was an instant buy a few days ago.

Just take it in and have a professional check it out. DO NOT try using the canned A/C kits. They can and will make things worse in the long-run.

Oh, and they'll do a dye test to check for leaks.

 

If you saw condensation blowing out, it usually means you didn't have the selector on recirculation. This puts the system in over work status because the small compressor is constantly cooling the hot out side air vs. the cooler interior air temp. See what if anything this does for you.

 

There are a number of prior threads on A/Cs that needed recharging. In my case the A/C quit cooling after a couple of hours because it had frozen over. Dealer charged about $90 to test and recharge. No leaks were found.

 

yeah the A/C is definitely the low point of GE Fit tech.

I paid $250 last year to replace the high pressure sensor, relay, recharge. (it was freezing up).

It cools adequately, but is under powered for the amount of glass. The air movement is very noisy. And this is when it works well. Hope they improved on this in the 2015s.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'll get it checked out soon. I doubt it froze over, since it was happening not long after starting it.

 

Do you happen to know the links to other threads? I tried searching, but didn't really find anything, at least in the second gen forum.

 

I have a 2010 Fit and I dislike the A/C very much in this car. Slow to cool down the car after it has been parked in the sun and after a while it the car does not get very cold at all. Car has only 34 k miles. Heater is very slow to heat in winter up but it gets pretty hot after a while. I think the HVAC in the GE8 Fit is junk.

 

My 2012 Fit Sport's AC doesn't blow very cold either. I don't think it's broken, I just think it's underpowered, like Howdy said. The heater is a little better but the AC is kind of just meh.