I read that some of the early Scion TC air conditioners did not have enough refrigerant? It has been very hot recently and the air conditioner is not that good. Do I just ask them to put more refridgerant in?

 

Just had a hot and muggy day in the Northeast yesterday and I experienced the same. As I just picked it up this week, I'm going to bring it to the dealer to check the A/C from enough freon. It was barely able to keep up with a 85 degree day.

I'm going to approach it as, "please check the A/C, the air is not very cold and can not cool the car on an 85 degree day." I'm going to avoid mentioning getting the info from an internet forum as it might make them skeptical of the info.

 

Please report back to what the dealer does. Would be nice to know if he says "Yeah, the freon was a little low, etc"

Kevin

 

I took mine in on the advice of a dealer on the forum. Mine is # 5386.

I really don't have a problem with the A/C, but just thought I'd have it checked it out anyways (and gave me an excuse to check out the other tC's on the lot).

They didn't find anything wrong...the service reports states:

",,,975 AC KOPERATING TO SPECS BLOWING AT 30F VISUAL INSP OK"

And they told me they checked it with 3 different gauges. Took about an hour. So not sure if this helps, but this is jus my experience.

 

Is the tC's A/C system similar to the Camry?

 

Mig your air conditioner works fine in hot weather then? I read that it was early production cars that had the problem.

 

Well, i suppose it does. I suspect the sun roof and the black interior cause the car to get super hot in 90 degree plus heat. So what i usually do is open the windows and sun roof first thing when the car is hot and drive...this usually clears out all the hot air w/in 5 seconds. Then i close everything and turn on the A/C full blast and recirculate. Takes about two minutes for it to get cold from there.

I do this whenever i'm in East LA county, and works great. YMMV of course, but i personally don't have any problems with the A/C when its hot outside. Granted, this is dry heat, so in high humidity areas like the north and southeast, this might not work.

From what a dealer on the forum had told me, some early cars didn't have enough freon put in the cars at the factory, and a quick run to the dealer would fix that. I would just take it to the dealer and let them check it out.

 

I pretty much do the same. I also try to remember to close the sunroof shades when I park as it keeps a lot of heat out.

Well, we have high humidity here and the A/C works great. On recirc in 90 degree heat I actually have to turn it back as I get too cold. And I'm almost never too cold.

 

I keep my sunroof closed all the time. It is funny that my last 3 cars have had sunroofs yet I never wanted one, it just seems like it is a standard feature now. Anyways I am comparing the air conditioner to a car I owned a long time ago, a 1999 Nissan Altima. This is a good comparison because the 1999 Altima has a 2.4 150 horsepower engine. The Altima had extremely cold air, the Scion has cool air, there is no comparison, at least not with mine, that is why I am getting mine looked at.

 

the air in my tC is pretty damn cold, even on 95 degree days. if you guys get info in freon shortages, i'll bring mine in though, but mine works great..

 

I read an interview with one of the Scion folks who was saying that specifically the xA and xB folks really had unreasonable demands about how good the AC should be - they would complain up and down about the AC, which is the exact same system as in the Echo, but on the Echo they get like zero complaints about it. The lesson is that in a car that cost 14 or 15k (or even 18k), you might not get the same quality and capacity AC as you do in a 30k car. Honestly, if I had to give something up on a car, an AC that wasn't super high capacity would be an ok thing for me.

 

I put a thermometer in my AC vent when it was running during the day, the temp measured at 42 deg F. From Mig's response, "...BLOWING AT 30F VISUAL INSP OK". I imagine that this indicates that this tC is producing air that is 30 deg F and that reading is within a specific range. I am sure that plus or minus 2 deg would be expected. For instance, the car I traded for my Scion measured 32 with the same thermometer. I believe that mine is a little warm and suspect.

There is usually a window in part of the cooling system that allows you to view the refrigerant in its liquid state. I will check that and measured the air output again in the morning.

If my air is fine, I may consider adding tint to the roof.

I will post my findings.
Cheers!

 

Do NOT tint your roof, the glass will crack and you'll have a non-warrantied nightmare on your hands.

 

I had the sunroof on my millenia tinted - and nothing happened to it in the span of a year. I hope I dont have any problems with my scion.

 

When I got back from the dealer they also indicated that my AC was "operating within proper parameters". They told me to vent through the top and use recirculate . . . duh.

Luckily its been a relatively mild summer in the Northeast so far.

 

my ac was working great,all this week with the exception of today i was using the a/c. ofcourse when u start it, i put it on like 3 for like 5-10 min to cool it down n then i gradually go all the way to 1 with both face and feet and still comfortable. no problems with a/c here

 

Why would the sunroof crack?

 

same question? any fact to this or is it just a myth? anyone actually had this happen to them in the past?

 

The problem is not with a $14-15k car, it is with the interior volume. The xA and (moreso) xB have the MPV shape that maximizes total interior volume. Cooling down such a car is always going to be more demanding on the AC system because there is more air to cool.
1) It takes longer to get the car cooled down initially.
2) It takes more effort to keep the car cool (think of it as a tug of war between your AC system and the sun, or ambient).
This would explain why an adequate AC system for the Echo would have to work harder in an xA/xB. I haven't had any problems with my xA and I live in South Florida, FWIW.

As far as the tC AC system, I'm not sure what is going on with that but I'm sure time will tell.

 

The A/C Sucks on the XA too....IT's ALL SCIONS!!!!!!!