01 Sable ls a/c problems
 

Hi, Im in need of some help, I picked up an 01 sable ls fully loaded a couple weeks back. At that time the a/c was ice cold and all was well. I got in my car two days ago and now the a/c doesnt work. I had a a/c guy look at it and he said it didnt need a recharge, the compressor, lines and everything else was kicking on and still got really cold but no cold air out of the vents only hot air. He told me vac lines were good, and that i probably need a new climate control. Has anyone else had these problems. BTW it has autoclimate control do these fail on sables?? Thanks Guys.

it could be that or a vac line is loose somewhere under the dash. Sometimes the climate controls go bad. I'd try tracing the lines out first and making sure nothing just fell off, but considering those dashes, that's easier said than done.

also, there should be a check valve that feeds the AC system. If that popped or came lose it could cause this problem as well.

Hey guys got my new climate control in the mail today, and that is NOT the problem, it is still doing the same thing.

are you sure that the vacuum check valves really are good? The vacuum lines may all be fine, but the check valve that goes to the system or one of the other vacuum actuators in the system may have a leak that is not allowing the system to pull enough vacuum to work right.

I'm not well versed with Mercurys and Fords, but it sounds like refrigeration circuit (compressor, condensor, evaporator, pipes and hoses) are ok. If the AC clutch still runs and the AC pipes near the evaporator are still cold, I would suspect whatever opens and closes the blending door on the heater / AC housing. If you could manually open/close the blending door you should be able to make the system go from hot to cold, depending on the position of the blending door. Unfortunately to check these things out you'd probably have to get a factory manual to locate the system components in question. Look for loose or broken servo motors and attaching levers, linkage, vacuum lines and hoses, etc. Maybe the dealer could diagnose this with a scan tool. With some GM cars, disconnecting the battery for awhile would reset some of the values for the AC servos.

No im not 100% sure about the vac lines, I pulled the one off the firewall that connects to the ac and it seemed like it had good vac/suction without leaks. The weird thing is the last couple weeks before this i had freezing ac. Yes all the components under the hood seem to work all lines get icy and still drips from under the car (condensation) I probably should have told you guys this though, i used my ac during the day and it got a little chilly that night so i turned my heat on for a bit, and the next day all i had was heat. NO ac just hot air outta the vents. How would i go about seeing if the door is stuck closed

the blend door may be stuck (might just require getting up under the dash and giggling things). the blend door actuator is usually just behind to the left of the glove box. you can sometimes get to it by removing the glove box. It could be the actuator itself. I've heard that the later model cars have problems with that part and the blend door itself cracking/breaking. usually the blend door though.

Here's one fix for if the blend door just flops end to end:
http://www.blenddoorfix.netfirms.com/

Here's one that covers a broken blend door as well:
http://www.conceptualedge.com/blend-door/

Alright guys thanks for your help oddly enough I did disconnect the battery for a bit and NOW my ac works again weird..but i cant complain haha

ok... that is weird. I wouldn't argue either. but then I would check to see if I could repeat it (switch on the heat and then try to cool again and see if it needs a battery disconnect to fix it again). makes me think it is the blend door actuator since it's electric in the newer vehicles. it also makes me think that it has a spring load in it that resets it to cold and when it's on heat it creates a self sustaining locked position. I could be way off though. Next time you might try pulling the fuse for just the AC instead of pulling power from the whole car just to make sure it's only that part of the system so you won't have to reset all the radio presets and clock, etc.

I used to have the same kind of thing happen with my 2002 Olds Intrigue - usually turning the car off and restarting it would be enough.