03 Eddie Bauer intermittently blows AC out of front, fan still running

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SteveP

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So this has been driving me crazy for a while. At first I thought it was lack of freon, so went through and charged it, and watched the compressor. All was fine, went on a long drive across the state and it would work fine, then not blow cold out the front. My wife was getting frustrated because she thought by messing with the vent she was getting it to work and then it would shut off again. Now the interesting part is the fan still sounds like it is running full speed, but just barely any air is coming out of the front vents. It doesn't get hot, the small amount of air is still cool, but in the summer it starts getting really hot inside the car. I can't really tell exactly where the air is going. Sometimes I feel a cool breeze on my feet when it stops blowing from the vents. I searched and found a bunch of topics with issues similar but not exactly. Unfortunately the controls are all digital so I can't manually push a lever to test anything. Was curious if anyone had seen this particular issue?
 

riphip

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If you have gauges, check your charge at 1200 rpm.
From adding refrigerant previously:
You may have too much refrigerant and is cutting out the compressor on high pressure but lets the fan run until pressure drops to safe level to engage compressor.
If you just used a drop-in can of something w/o using gauges and bleeding the hoses, you may have air (anything non-refrigerant) in your system creating other problems.
Also check your fan clutch as it may not be pulling sufficient air thru the condenser to cool refrigerant. This would be more noticeable at idle or driving slower speeds.
 

AtomiK_RC

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I actually have a similar issue with my 03. While accelerating and on face/feet mix, the face vents stop and it goes to feel only. Let off the gas, it goes back. If I have it on face vents only, it's not as sensitive, but will still occasionally cut out under acceleration. Fan still blowing fine and still cold, just cuts off the face vents. No idea why, but you're not alone!
 
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SteveP

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Hey thanks for the tips all. I never realized the pattern, but it is tied to the accelerator and letting off the accelerator. The reason I never associated it before was that there was a 4 or 5 second delay each direction. And driving in SoCal you can rarely be on your accelerator for more than 5 seconds. Well I looked at those links and followed my vacuum lines. There was one that went to a heater hose near the firewall(looks like it shuts off water to heater core?). It was really loose so I plugged it back in and put some hotglue on it to keep it from slipping off so easily. So now the face vents are staying on. So thank you for that! One small thing though is although everything is working and getting cold, i still feel “some” air on my feet. Is there maybe a leak or part about to go bad?

Thanks again!
 
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