I have 2013 Edge, I just had the condenser, expansion valve, and the high pressure sensor replaced, had the compressor and fans replaced last year. After those 3 parts were replaced the compressor is not kicking on. Even putting a gauge on it reads low, basically empty. I tried adding refrigerant but it keeps dropping back to 0. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

You are low on charge. Did you actually evacuate the system with a vacuum pump and then check to see if the system holds vacuum? If you didn't, the system won't pull in the refridgerant or you have a large leak and it's leaking as fast as you are putting it in.

 

Must have had a catastrophic failure for all those parts requiring replacement.

To say the system has a leak is the result of something.
Either something was replaced incorrectly or something was overlooked.
Can we ask who did the work?
The reason we ask is , if the person /place was not equipped or qualified, what we have now is the result.

To keep adding refrigerant is futile. Until the system is checked thoroughly, this will never get better only worse.
There has to be a lot of history with this and to apply a band aid by just adding refrigerant will get expensive and if something was done incorrectly , it will always have problems.
There are steps and procedures that need to be followed for the system to work properly.
It is really illegal to continuously add refrigerant without correcting the leak.. Any professional place knows this. SOOOOO,
Depending on who did the work, they should have a chance to redo and check their work or whoever did the work did not do a complete job as stated by the last post , if in the process of evacuating the system, the person didn't do it right and now there is a leak which should have never been allowed before charging the system.

 

The shop that did it said that when he did the vacuum it wasn't holding in the place it was supposed to. What's weird is that the whole thing happened progressively. It was working just fine, then it stopped blowing cold from the driver's side only, the passenger side was ice cold. Then all of a sudden it stopped blowing cold altogether, but the compressor was still kicking on. I had it looked at and was told it was the condenser, once he replaced that then he said there was something wrong with the expansion valve so he replaced it and the high pressure sensor. Once he got it all back together, flushed the system, vacuumed and charged it, it wouldn't hold a charge and he said the vacuum was not where it was supposed to be.

 

It is not our intent to poo poo somebody's work, but when we see it we have a pretty good idea of what might have gone wrong.

From my experience I suspect there was some guessing taking place and we'll replace this and see if that helps and if not we'll replace that and see etc.

It is unfortunate that you incurred the expense, and I would suspect it was a lot, but I could not in good conscience suggest you go back to the same shop even if you wanted to be decent and give them another chance to fix it.
There may be a problem in an area they haven't touched yet and I just hesitate to consider going back there, but you paid for it to be repaired and it might be a good idea to ask how much more they think they want to replace to fix it.


If the compressor is operating , there has to be sufficient refrigerant in the system for it to run,,,,,,,,,,,,,but if they jumped a low pressure sw to make it run, a compressor may be on the horizon.. Please consider another opinion and shop before losing everything in your wallet.

 

I paid $1200 for the condenser and the flush, that is all he charged me for. He did a lot of free work(He did let me know what he was doing before doing it) so idk if that has anything to do with it all. The compressor is still under warranty from a previous shop that replaced it last year. It does not kick on at all, I will sit there and watch it and nothing happens with it. It's just strange that it was kicking on prior to these repairs, then after it is not at all. It reads 0 when I had put the AC Pro gauge on it, even had added some freon but then it drops back down to 0 and the compressor didn't kick on at all even when adding any. I even tried to see if letting some out would work but nothing even comes out so that makes me think there's nothing in it at all. Luckily the compressor is under warranty so I will be taking it back to the shop that replaced it.

 

A little FYI.
Most compressors will not come on until a certain amount of refrigerant pressure is in the system.
To get it in the system some guys will jump the low pressure sw to make the compressor work and get the refrigerant into the system. If there is insufficient oil in the system and the compressor is forced to run, it will destroy the compressor.
From what you describe I even wonder if anybody checked the doors in the ducts to see if they were working correctly
This is going to require somebody that has the equipment and knowledge of how A/C works to correctly diagnose and repair the problems.
Maybe you are not supplying the entire story, but I would consider another shop.

 

I'm definitely providing all the information I have about it all, it's a mess and stressing me out. The compressor has been replaced twice in the last 2 years, both by the same shop. I'm taking it to them on Monday since it is under warranty. This compressor is brand new and only barely a year since it's been replaced.

 

I hope they changed the accumulator with all the other stuff. If the system wasn't flushed of all debris after the first compressor failure, that could account for a repeated compressor failure. Once the system is purged, it is manditory that the vacuum does not bleed out or they are just wasting refridgerant and their time. When the system still holds its vacuum, that is what pulls the refridgerant in till the pressure switch is satisfied and closes thus turning on the compressor.There should never be a reason to jump that switch out to get the compressor to run.

 

After the compressor was replaced last year I didn't have any issues, everything worked perfect, then as soon as it started warming up, that's when things progressively got worse. It's hard to trust the integrity of shops when it comes to these things, so I can't really tell if the shop that replaced the condenser and expansion valve messed anything up or not. He's been in the business for over 30 years, he did a lot of work to help me out since I'm in a tight spot with money. I can only wait and see what the other shop says about the compressor when they check it out. Things seem off because the compressor would turn on prior to these repairs, so I'm not sure what could have happened, I know it could be a number of things but who knows.