Pulled in to the garage today, A/C was clicking on and off, thought it was low on 134a. I popped the hood and started adding some and noticed the cooling fan wasn't on, and the compressor just went silent. I hopped in the car, noticed hot air coming out of the vents, and the engine temp pegged at the top.

I know there's a way to check the relay to see if it's that or the fan, what's the trouble shooting on this thing? I searched but couldn't find the answer.

The T-stat was replace about 6 months ago, and there's new coolant in the system (<2 months old).

 

Can you spin the fan by hand easy? Also take a test light and ground the one side then probe the small wires in the center of the relay and see if the fan comes on.

 

OK let the car sit, started it up, a/c on, fan comes on just fine. Go around the block, park in the garage, and fan is on. Stop the car, turn it back on, a/c on, fan not on, compressor starts clicking on and off again.

I go through this a few times, drive to Lowes in my other car and make my own jumper.

 

WTF IT WON'T LET ME POST MY MESSAGES???

 

This is too funny, it lets me post messages like this but not actual messages with useful text in them.

 

Link to the full post...
http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/cha...ic.php?t=16008

 

Maybe the relay is bad.

 

That's what I was thinking, but once when I tried to jump it, the fan didn't come on. But did when I unplugged and replugged the ground back in (with it still jumped).

If that hadn't of happened I would've thought "relay" right there. I suppose it also could be that the jumper didn't have good contact with the battery, and just happened to come on when I giggled the ground wire.

I put a new relay in, I hear they are a common failure anyway, so hopefully this fixes the issue. If not at least it's fixed for the future, and will narrow down the issue later.

Hopefully it's fixed, seeing the temp pegged and coolant boiling scared the crap outta me!

 

Hope all is well.