Just had to share.
I purchased the TT nearly three years ago, shortly after my son was born. Since then, it has gone to an actual shop once, and that was to do an oil change as we were mid move, and I didn’t have any of my stuff. When I bought it, the A/C blew cold air on a very hot day, which I was surprised and impressed with for a 165+k mile car. Unfortunately, by the next summer, it was gone.
I’ve tried a recharge kit, but the gas blew right out, leading me to believe there’s a leak somewhere. I bought a kit with dye, but the nozzle was too shallow for the low pressure port, so I got dye all around the port. Fine. I lack the tools or knowledge to do much of anything useful with air conditioning, so I brought it to a local shop to see if they could track down the issue.
They charge me $50 for the inspection, which I pay whether it gets repaired or not. I did not. Here’s what they found.
a) There’s a “big leak”, and they don’t know yet what’s doing it. My guess is that it’s the dye from my kit that they’re looking at, because if you listen to the noise of the gas leaving, it’s from the back of the engine, not the front. But, no dye at the back.
b) Even though they don’t know what’s leaking, they’re very sure I need a “freon temp sensor”, which will cost $108.57 for the part, and $96.60 in labor. Two issues. One, there’s no such thing as a refrigerant temperature sensor in the TT, only an ambient temperature sensor. There’s a coolant temperature sensor, but that has nothing to do with the HVAC. Chances are, they’re talking about the high pressure sensor which is in a static open state, which could be due to the leak *or* because the system is empty. Second issue, and this is minor, but stop calling it freon, as no car since about 1994 uses freon.
c) After they replace that, then they can evaculate and recharge the system for $172.62, and recheck to see where the leak is from.
In the end, they wanted $475.44 to diagnose, repair, and recharge, but no guarantees it’d work after.
I’ll just keep the top down, and worry about the switch later.