A/C woes

The A/C started blinking. First time's was several weeks ago, I was sitting in a parking lot in Florida and the light began blinking. I tried to turn off and on an few times and ended up turning off the truck and sitting for awhile. Wife got in, started engine and no issues. Same thing two weeks ago, had been idling in parking lot and it was hot and humid. In the last two weeks, it has happened more often. I changed the relay, no change. Took it to my mechanic and there were no codes, so the mechanic evacuated and recharged the system. He evacuated 1.09 lbs, not 1.43, which he said was what the system called for. Drive home 3 miles, then drove 5 miles to a store and on the way back it did it again, so I went straight to the shop and left it running to see if there were codes. He showed me the scanner and it said compressor lockout,iirc. Set up an appointment for this morning at 9, dropped it off and went back at 1230 and picked it up. Drove home and later went to do an errand and it happened again. Any suggestions?

 

Bump

 

I would find someone more experienced with Toyota ACs. While a very different vehicle I had a Toyota do the same thing several years ago - a mechanic friend of mine said it needed some very small electrical connector replaced - found it at autozone so not a super special part - he did have to evacuate - vacuum and re-charge. That repair was over 15 yrs ago and it still works.

I do not feel it is a big item like a compressor or evap core - does not appear it it leaking - whew.

 

Bump

 

Sounds like he doesn't know how to diagnose ac issues; mine did the same thing, my clutch on the compressor was worn out causing it not to engage, when it ran into the engagement issue, the ac light would blink. Get your wife to press the AC button on your dash while you look at the compressor and clutch, when she turns it on, you should see the clutch pull in and then the compressor should start spinning; if you see the clutch pull in and the compressor doesn't spin, then the clutch is worn out or the compressor is locked up.

Where did you get the relay from? Its a special relay and not any off brand will work, I only recommend one straight from the dealer (the one I got on Amazon was a fake)

Granted you still potentially have a freon problem, you were low on freon and you can't just lose some; its a closed system, meaning you have a small leak somewhere. But only being that low I don't believe is low enough to trigger the pressure cut off.

Secondly if you don't see the clutch move at all either 1. the low pressure cutoff is keeping it from engaging, or 2. the compressor clutch isn't getting power or ground to engage, if the latter then you need to check for power at the relay and make sure its getting triggered to engage the clutch

 

Shop should have checked pressures on high and low side. You can get a blockage in the condenser, filter/dryer or resulting in an intermittent high pressure condition. But if the condition doesn’t happen during diagnosis, tech will miss it.

 

I recently went through something similar. It ended up my expansion valve needed replacing.