Hi all,

I really don't know what to think about what happened on my car recently. The a/c has always had a mild clunking sound when it engaged, but worked really well, besides bogging the car down for a moment when it engaged.

About two weeks ago, though, I hit the A/C on and it made a horrendous clunking sound and bogged the car down so much that cylinders 3,4, and 6 misfired and obviously kicked the check engine light on.

Once it was on, there was no issues with the unit running, and since it was hot outside I left it on. The motor was in limp mode so as I drove around it was idling rough, but that was it.

I haven't touched the A/C since I turned it off that day, and the car runs perfectly fine as long as I don't touch it.

Now, obviously, I feel like I need to change the compressor, but I wanted to get thoughts on the matter here, since I've never heard of anything like this happening before.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I don't know if the unit is seizing, or if maybe the belt is bad or what, but once it's on the unit blows ice cold air. Thanks in advance.

 

pull the belt off and spin the compressor. check for noise.
actually just got a new denso unit off amazon for $200. changing the whole system.

 

Sounds like you may have a bad AC clutch. These days you generally replace the entire AC compressor, rather than just the AC clutch.