2004.5 Volvo S40 T5

The AC works most of the time, but will blow hot intermittently when the outside temp is extremely high and the car has been running for a while, and also during times with high temps and lots of idling. It will always blow cold again shortly afterwards, and hasn't caused any problems when temps aren't extreme.

I had it in the shop a couple weeks ago, and the freon was low so that was re-charged. They also put die in the system to detect leaks. Well, this didn't really help it, and now it has a full charge with no leaks, but it still performs as stated earlier.

The next step the shop wants to take is replacing the compressor. I'm hoping it doesn't need that. After some online searching it sounds like it could be the clutch, which would be much cheaper to replace, or possibly even fix with shims?

I would love to find someone on here who could fix it, or at least get some advice on where to take it that won't immediately want to do the $1,000+ fix.

7/17/2012 1:56:38 PM

If it's the clutch...there are a number of symptoms....squealing of metal hitting metal...hot air like you mentioned, and the smell of grinding metal. Technically it could catch a car on fire if the clutch goes become frozen. Just a heads up...I saw one burn up at a park last week.

Clutches are cheap parts...but the labor might not be. Check that out too.

7/17/2012 2:30:59 PM

Thanks for the input. The only one of those symptoms I have noticed is the hot air.

Another interesting thing happened on my way home from work. About 15 minutes into my commute, the air started to blow hot. I turned the climate control knob down a few degrees and it started blowing cold again. It stayed cold for a couple minutes and then went hot again. This happened 3-4 times. It would start blowing hot, I would manipulate the knob, and then it would blow cold. The last time is proceeded to stay cold the remainder of my drive home which was roughly 30 minutes.

7/17/2012 6:28:02 PM