AC Compressor Problems

Sitting at a curbside spot today, idling for 10 minutes or so in silence, when I notice the AC compressor kicks on as it cycles and I hear a bit of a louder humming/somewhat rattly sound. At first I thought it was a ricer driving by slowly. I waited a bit and the compresor cycled again, and I heard it again, so I know it’s me. Yay.

I got the timing right on the next cycle and clicked the AC button off right as the compressor kicked on so I could see if the humming came on and went away as I clicked the button. It did. So I know I’m narrowed down to the compressor or at least the AC, and there are no other moving parts when that idle-up happens so it’s gotta be the compressor.

Now, it’s impossible to share how this sounds because it’s too quiet for me to catch on video in the cab, and under the hood, the fan drowns it out.

I know people have had compressor failures, which are somewhat rare. Anybody ever noticed a noise like this before their compressor failed? It sounds a bit like a very quiet driveline vibration or something. Sort of like a low pitched rumble. Hard to hear, but It’s definitely there and it has done it every time the AC has cycled since I picked up on it. So I’m sure I’m gonna have to do something about it…..joy.

For what it’s worth, it still cools fine and it drives fine with the AC on, albeit the whistle noise and the pissing on passenger legs syndrome are both alive and well. Main thing I’m trying to avoid is continuing to run the AC and bust my compressor innards to shards and destroy a bunch of the rest of the system.

Thanks for any input that may help.

 

You will need to hook up some a/c gauges to see what the pressures are doing.

 

I don’t disagree, but it’s still functioning perfectly fine and so I’m not sure I’d see much. In my eyes, the noise is more of a precursor about what may come in the future. Just curious if anyone has experienced similar on theirs and if it led to actual problems later.

 

Could it be a tensioner going bad only noticeable under load when the compressor engages?

 

Possibly, although it really sounds like it’s coming from the compressor area, but that’s hard to really tell.

 

Is it really that hot in Texas right now that you need ac?

I would cycle the AC on and then get undwr the truck and see what you can hear / closer to the noise.

 

Not hot but it certainly gets stuffy with it not on. And not only that, but I don’t choose to run it anyways, I just use it in auto mode and it enables itself.

Doesn’t really matter though, in just a month or two there will already start to be miserable days if it does become problematic.

I can listen in the driver wheel well and very faintly hear the noise. Have to listen close because the fan is much louder.

 

This was my thought if we are assuming the compressor is fine.

 

In all honesty, I’m not really in a place or even have the time or energy to deal with this currently, so for now I’m pretty much just taking note of the new noise and gonna see where it goes from here. If it’s a real problem, I’m sure it will show itself soon enough.

 

2.5 years and 38k miles on my '22 and the fan is loud af in mine. Some days are louder than others and it basically sounds like crickets chirping away. The ac still works perfectly fine, but it's just loud. My 08 Civic Si doesn't sound anything like my truck and the ac gets colder. Idk if I'm still within warranty at 38k miles but I'll have to call the dealership when I have some time off from work.

 

Well this is awkward. I come back to this thread with my tail between my legs. I don’t have an AC problem, I have a me problem.

I posted here about this on Jan 25. I found a photo of my truck on January 8th with the TRD skid. I recalled removing the TRD skid sometime earlier this year, and out of laziness I never put it back. Then at some point I put the stock skid back on, because I started to plan for selling the truck. I dig into my photos and found photos from January 8th with the TRD installed and January 21 with the stock skid on.

What happened, is since I ended up officially going back to stock, but had a gap between removing the TRD and installing stock, I forgot about and never ended up reinstalling the bolts for those channel brackets that you remove for the TRD. So those channel pieces were rattling with the stock skid against the frame.

I noticed the noise got worse recently and I realized I just did an oil change. Listened around with my ear until I got as close to the noise as I could, and realized it was the skid rattling. Removed the skid, reinstalled the 4 bolts that were removed for the TRD, so everything is back to stock, and my “AC issue” is fixed.

Why did I think it was AC? Well, because it happened every time the compressor kicked on. Turns out that is only because of the added load and vibration from the engine. Once the AC kicked on, all that stuff ramped up and rattled the skid. I noticed this a few times without AC on, which is when I really started to suspect I had the problem wrong. I noticed it sometimes when I lugged the motor at idle or when I used a lot of power steering at low speed.

Anywho, I’m glad it’s fixed. It makes sense as to why my AC kept working perfectly fine all this time. I’m actually reconsidering keeping the truck now…we’ll see how the 6MT 4th gen drives when the one I ordered arrives. It still might win me over.

 

None of us like to admit it when we make a mistake, but it shows good character when we do.