It never feels cool and takes a while to get cool. The interior is like 8 cubic feet it should be an ice box ! Anyone else run into this?

Agent Top-End

 

104F today. The vent temperature got to around 50F in around 2 miles during my lunch today.

What temp of air is coming out of your vents?

 

39F to 43F air temperature at my '02 Cooper CVT's dash vents.

Here in Miami temp is currently 87F and humidity at 67%.

If your dash vents A/C temp is over 45F you have a problem. Either you freon (R134a refrigerant) is low, you have a leak somewhere in the system or your A/C compressor is shot or about to go south.

take it back to the dealer.

 

>>104F today.

Jeez Dominic... what time was that? 9 AM this morning? It's 110 now.
:smile:

 

My MCS Auto A/C works just fine. I live in MD and it has been in the mid 90s the past few days with high humidity. Actually it works better than the A/C in my Honda Civic EX. I have no complaints here.

You may want to have the service dept. check it out.

Good Luck.

JoJo

 

I suppose it depends upon the location in the Valley of the Sun you're in. WeatherBug's reporting 107 now in Glendale and at noon it was 104 or so.

Gilbert is reporting in at 109, so that might be what you're seeing there on the south side, Gerry.


I love weatherbug!

 

I had an electrical glitch in my AC several months back before it got REAL hot. It was quickly fixed and now my AC works just fine. (...compressor wasn't even kicking in...yeah, that would effect its performance!) I'm not saying your problem is the same as mine...just that the AC should work and that you should have it checked out. You might investigate for other threads because not that summer is here several folks have been having AC-related complaints.

 

here's something really odd that happened with mine. About a month or two months ago I thought my AC wasn't working as strong as it should, but now the last few times I've run it, it blows air as cold as 46F in 100+ air temps. So maybe it was psychological or maybe something freed up with age in the car that allowed better cooling. Don't know...

 

A/C working fine here too in the MD heat and humidity, and also worked very well in Orlando mugginess a couple months back.

I'd have the dealer check it out for you. Definitely a warranty item.

 

Seems like there are more complaints from people who live in hot and dry areas, vs those in hot and humid (like me in New Orleans). I have no problem with the A/C. Could it be something going on with the lack of humidity? I'm no expert, but doesn't A/C have something to do with decreasing the amount of humidity, thus making the air feel cooler? Hence, the water dripping out from under the car when the A/C is running.

 

A/C works by moving air over a chilled 'radiator'. This has the twofold benefit of cooling the air and condensing the moisture present in the air, making it drier. That's the water you see dripping from under the car. It doesn't matter that these folks live in dry climates, in fact the a/c system does not have to work quite as hard to remove the moisture that isn't there.

In very hot climates in standstill traffic, the a/c system can get a bit overwhelmed, and the system has built-in safety devices to prevent it from being damaged in those cases. These devices generally case the a/c to momentarily shut down and come back, repeating until the overload is gone. This will make the system seem like it's not putting out very cold air.

In very hot and/or humid areas it's best to run the a/c in recirculate mode (the circle of arrows) so it's not trying to cool 100+ degree air from outside all the time.

 

Amazing how this topic keeps getting brought up all over MCO.

It seems that the AC in the MINI is not as well designed for hot temps.
I am in Phoenix, and man is it hot.
I have been wondering about the AC for a while.
Aside from the lack of blowing power, position of the vents behind the steering wheel, and the vents sunk into the dash thus preventing direction of the air, tha AC just doesn't have the punch of other cars.

I went out and bought a digital temp guage to check the temp inside the car and the temp of the AC.

When I get into my car to head to the Diamondbacks game at 4:00, it is 141 degrees inside and 111-114 outside. (It was still 101 degree outside when I left the game last night at 9:00 pm)
The AC starts blowing and cooling down, but slows around 65. It will take about 10 minutes of freeway driving to cool down to the 51. It really doesn't cool much lower than that. I can get it to read 48 or so in the morning.

I set the temp unit on the passenger seat. It also read temps (Desinged for an inside and outside temp).
Without the AC blowing on it, and while the AC is blowing at that 51 degrees, the temp in the passenger seat is around 90 degrees.

I think the AC sucks. But I still love my car!

 

Brandon,

Take your MCS to the dealer and tell them your temp readings. I did temp readings on my MCS and they were in the acceptable range. When I was worried about this earlier, I called the dealership and got the temp ranges the AC should be in our conditions. I posted that info in one of the other AC threads here on the MCO somewhere...

 

Anyone tried this product before? Its great for the summer. Your a/c does get colder and most of all it makes your a/c compressor works more efficient and thus minimize the loss of power when air con is turned on. The result is more noticeable when adding it to older cars.

 

Temperatures here are 83 to 88 degrees. My AC works just fine. I hardly use it as in not at all
unless my wife is in the car. If nobody else is around I will run it once a week for about 5 minutes
to exercise it and I heard it might be good for the seals.
If I park the car and it warms up then I roll down the windows and drive about 2 blocks and it cools off.
Overall pretty good. And in the winter I don't use the heater either as it is about 70-80 degrees.
It can make you spoiled if you stay here too long.

 

Its been in the 90's here in Miami and the a/c in my MCS is doin' jus fine. Cools off nice and quick within a minute or two and then I turn it to 2 or 1.

Maybe the ones having trouble have sunroofs or black tops that are radiating heat inside and making the a/c work much harder.

Before I got my car I was also worried about the a/c after reading some of these posts, but truthfully I have absolutely no complaints. It almost matches the potency of my Dodge Ram's a/c! and ya'll know ain't nothin' better'n merican a/c.

 

I have the black solid top (No sunroof) but the car is Pepper White. I also have the manual A/C. No problems colling down the cockpit in Miami's 90F+ summer weather either.

American car A/C's are definetely better than most. I would rate GM's #1 and Chrysler's a close second.

 

For those with AC problems, can you do me a little favor? It's that I come from an engineering background so I like experiments. If you do too, please participate.

Buy a thermometer. Find a stretch of freeway. Drive to the onramp with the windows rolled down so as to equalize temps. Record a temp reading. Roll up windows. Get on freeway and place AC to max. Hold thermometer directly infront of the AC vent. Drive two miles at freeway speed, 55MPG, then record a temp reading. Drive another two miles while still holding thermometer on the vent and take another temp reading. Place thermometer in a shady part of the car and drive another two miles and then take the final temp reading. Then call me Professor Dom from now on

 

>>It never feels cool and takes a while to get cool. The interior is like 8 cubic feet it should be an ice box ! Anyone else run into this?<<

I think the short answer to your question is that it just sucks.

How are you guys measuring the vent temperature? Taping a thermometer over the vent? I'm curious to try this out because my A/C absolutely cannot handle 90+ F and three people in the car.

 

>>How are you guys measuring the vent temperature? Taping a thermometer over the vent?

Just holding one of those cheap wall-mount mercury thermometers directly in front of it without blocking the airflow.

 

Like one of these...

 

Same here, I think the A/C in the cooper is not as good as the one in my mercedes, or in my truck (tow vehicle).




>>>>It never feels cool and takes a while to get cool. The interior is like 8 cubic feet it should be an ice box ! Anyone else run into this?<<
>>
>>I think the short answer to your question is that it just sucks.
>>
>>How are you guys measuring the vent temperature? Taping a thermometer over the vent? I'm curious to try this out because my A/C absolutely cannot handle 90+ F and three people in the car.

 

It was 116 here in Vegas today & here's what I've concluded re: A/C problems in my MCS

The A/C will only cool off the interior as fast as it can while the Sunlight heats up the interior as fast as it can. In the shade & after dark - my A/C cools the car down to meat locker level in no time flat. In the daytime when the sun is bearing down on the huge panoramic sunroof and soaking into the black leather seats I cook for about 15 minutes before it gets [I}relatively[/I] comfortable inside the car. It seems most of us who are unhappy with their A/C are in the desert - i.e. Phoenix. I'm wondering if there is a difference in A/C performance in Mini's without sunroofs.

 

I would take it to the dealer. I'm in North Carolina and the temperature has been in the nineties with heat indexes over 100 and I'm freezing my buns off. Do you have ACC or standard? I just set it on high for a few minutes and then turn the fan down and it's fine. Only down side, with only 115hp in the MC, is that having the A/C on does bog down the acceleration response but on the move it's just fine.

 

>>It never feels cool and takes a while to get cool. The interior is like 8 cubic feet it should be an ice box ! Anyone else run into this?
>>
>>Agent Top-End

My MINI also had a bad AC and now it is fixed. I bought my car in May 2002 and the AC was always mildly cool. I took it to the dealer and they could not find the problem. It took a year for the source to surface. The problem in my car was that the auxillary fan and the water pump are on the same circuit. I had a bad water pump (on the edge of breakdown) where it would make the auxillary fan not work properly to cool the engine. The result was that the ac would be warm. Eventually, when the water pump finally started to fail, it would suck so much power that the fuse would blow and the auxillary engine fan would not kick on, the ac would be warm and the engine would start to overheat when at idle. I suggest that you have your water pump checked. The dealer mentioned that they saw another MINI with the same problem and it affects some of the early MINI models released in the U.S.

Hope that helps! :smile: