camry jerks and looses acceleration when ac is cut on.

[Talamant3z]

ok well i been working on my buddy car and i was going to change the expansion valve. well today her ac started to work BUT it came with other issues . when she turns the ac on the car give a slight jerk or missfire and when she pushes the pedal down to accelerate it wont its speeds up slowly. so does that sound like a bad expansion valve issue or what could be going on?ac clutch maybe?

also its a 97 camry xle

[davemac2]

It could be the a/c compressor that is starting to seize and is causing excessive load on the engine. A bad A/C clutch would not cause this engine bogging. There is an idle-up of around 500 RPM that is suppose to occur when the A/C is operating to compensate for the additional load at idle. If the engine is struggling while driving though, this idle-up is moot. Monitor the RPM's on the instrument panel when this happens.

dave mc