A3 2006 1.9TD air con intermittent problem

[rider1000]

Hi there.
Just bought an A3 2006 1.9TD and the air conditioning seems to have an intermittent fault.

After I start the car and put the air con on Lo, it can take either a mile or so to get ice cold air coming out or sometimes several miles. EG 8.

The air con has been regassed. It clearly works well when it works, but (and I am only guessing here), that whatever tells the clutch to engage to drive the compressor seems to not always work straight away or perhaps there is a sensor that sometimes takes time to figure out it should tell the air con to engage the clutch.

Or of course it could be something else. Having read the forums, air con seems to be a weakness but normally it seems to be it breaks rather than this intermittent issues, but again I may be wrong.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks
Andy

[jonathanfenton]

Firstly when you switch it on make sure both radiator fans spin up, if they don't then it wont work unless its got air flow flowing through the condenser radiator. Also there is the possibility of a fault with one of the pressure/temp sensors that could intermittently cut out the compressor. Start with fans then move onto a fault scan.