Hi I have an Acura TL 2009 3.7 L.
I bought the car and the A/C isn't working so I thought it only needed refrigerant. After trying to put refrigerant, the car would take it but it doesn't give any cold air inside. I then checked if it was leaking but nothing.
What I tried to do is I plugged compressed air in and a very small amount of air would leave the other hose. Has anyone been in the same problem, I am out of ideas, is it the evaporator or the blower motor or is it the expansion valve?

Thank you!

 

Of the three i would say expansion valve, but then it could be something else too. If it was the evaporator, I think people are able to tell the amount that it can hold and how much is in there days after filling. Blower motor just blows the air in, so if you turn on AC and no air moving at all, then that would be the blower. Ensure the compressor is kicking on. !!

 

I'm not sure what you meant by saying:

"What I tried to do is I plugged compressed air in and a very small amount of air would leave the other hose."

Are you saying you tried to put compressed air into your refrigerant system? If so, that is a bad idea. There is lot of water in compressed air and you don't want it mixing with the oil and it will also likely ruin your receiver dryer. When shops need to blow through the refrigerant system they use Nitrogen.

Is the compressor turning on?
What are the gauge readings on both high and low?

When you said that the car would take refrigerant, but blew no cold..... How did you know how much refrigerant you were putting in?

 

The A/C in our cars has a built-in self-diagnostic procedure. Pressing a certain combination of keys on the dash will start the test and flash codes that will tell you exactly what is wrong. If you look at the root of the 4th TL forum there is a link for the shop repair manual. Download that file and search for the self-diagnostic procedure.

 

To get into the hidden menu press the NAV-BACK-MENU buttons simultaneously for a few seconds till the screens come up. You can see the GPS satellite info, you can adjust volume levels and reset calibration setting for the voice recognition microphone. I am not aware of anything in this section that will self-diagnose A/C problems. Keep in mind that this menu was designed for developers and you can cause problems by tinkering with things you were not supposed to be adjusting. This area is not going to solve your problem, but I guess if you were inclined to put compressed air in your A/C system, heck why not try this too.

 

Not the NAV-BACK-MENU but:

From a dead cold and with the ignition in ON(II) press and hold the FAN ON/OFF button and then within 10 seconds press and release the rear window defog 5 times, then release the FAN ON/OFF button. The system will enter self-diagnostic mode and may display some error codes in the audio HVAC display unit. Too long story to post all the codes, explanations, scenarios etc... get the shop manual.

 

Not sure what state you are in but what I did for a friend which is much easier and cheaper is take it to a AC shop you can trust. Have them do a AC test, they're usually cheap, under 50$. They tell you what's wrong and you fix it. I bought the parts online. I was able to get a complete AC set of parts for 285$. A nice difference from Acura dealerships price of 800 for the compressor part alone. Note: when AC problems involve the compressor, it's always recommended to change the condensor and dryer because that's where all the metals deposits end up and they will ruin your new system. If you need help let me know because I just changed the entire AC system. Took me 3hrs and cost me about 300$.