I noticed yesterday that my air conditioner isn't working. Engine temp shows normal in the instrument cluster, fans inside cabin all blow normally if it's just the fan. Checked under the hood and nothing is amiss.

However, when I hit the "recirculate air" or "AC On" buttons they sit there and flash and turn off. I'm thinking it's just out of freon/refrigerant. The car will be 8 years old next month. Does anyone have any other ideas as to what it might be?

 

What was the outside temperature displayed in the DIC when this happened and did it seem to be accurate? The A/C is disabled if it is too cold out. On most vehicles too cold means 40°F or lower as indicated by ambient temp sensor or the intake air temp sensor if said vehicle doesn't have an ambient temp sensor. On the Equinox the recirulate feature is also disabled along with the A/C when it is too cold outside.

The Equinox does have an ambient temp sensor located behind the front fascia/grille. These sensors fail quite often on GM vehicles and cause a very inaccurate temp to be displayed which in turn could cause the A/C to be incorrectly disabled as you observed.

The correct part number is 15826773 (w/o retainer) or 25775833 (w/retainer). This is one of the few cases where buying it from a dealer will probably be cheaper than buying from a parts store. Either part retails for less than $7.

I doubt that the refrigerant level is the problem because the recirculate feature would not be disabled if that were the case.

 

hitting the recirc and a/c button at the same time 3x will cause the havc module to recalibrate all the blend door actuators. the buttons will flash until the doors complete the calibration.


move the temp blend **** from full hot to full cold. you should feel a change in air flow as the door moves. if you feel nothing, the temp blend door may be broken. When this breaks, you can't change the temp of the air that comes out the vents.

 

The temperature was accurate. I'll replace the part anyhow, how easy is it to fix?

Can this not be fixed at all or is it something I can't do on my own? Because it's going to be a very long, hot summer without AC in Southern California.

 

if it is a blend door; its not a dyi job. Best case its 1 hour with the special gm service tool. Worse case its 8 hours. Everything ahead of the front seats must come out...everything.

 

If the temp seems to be accurate, I wouldn't bother replacing the sensor. The service manual says you need to remove the front fascia to replace it so I wouldn't worry about it.

 

I did do your test and recalibrated this and it still works perfectly, still no AC/recirculating air though.

That would be an incredibly inconvenient task, having to take everything out. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be the blend doors.

Is it possible I may have a R134-A leak?

 

yes it could be low refrigerant. Check to see if the a/c compressor is cycling on.

 

Funny thing... When I checked under the hood, I completely forgot to check the condenser. Took it to a shop this morning, and within 5 minutes of the shop having the car, they came back and brought me into the shop and showed me a nickel sized hole in the condenser's very bottom left quadrant. The hole is due to a rock bouncing across the freeway that I caught last week on a drive to LA. $500 later (parts, labor, A/C Service, etc), good as new. -_- I'm just glad that the rock caught the condenser and nothing else that could have been far more damaging.