I’d be surprised if you get much help, given how aggressively you responded to a suggestion.
You are a newcomer to a free online forum, and when you post a question, you’ll get whatever answers that people can come up with. I don’t see how you could reasonably expect otherwise. Did you perhaps pay for a site membership, and therefore expect paid technical help?
I actually have what appears to be the same exact symptom with a 2008 Sienna LE which has the same dual front/rear system. I was excited when you first posted because then we might find some common ground and fix both of our problems…
Then, you posted that, “I'm only looking for comments from” certain forum members. Bold of you, to say the least. It doesn’t look like this attitude will engender a very productive discussion.
You mentioned that you didn’t want to work with a professional shop - That’s actually for the best, because I can’t imagine that any shop would be glad to have you as a customer, given how brusque you’ve chosen to be.
I’ll mention my own limited troubleshooting efforts with my 2008 LE. Obviously, that’ll mostly be for the benefit of future readers of this post, considering your earlier aggressive response and the similar one I expect from you by daring to respond without a solution. Alas.
My A/C also fails to blow cool for the first few minutes after being turned on. Adding refrigerant didn’t seem to help my symptom. I used the Walmart brand refrigerant without stop-leak, the latter being a big part of the reason I’d use this over what is normally sold in auto parts stores. I also used the pressure fill-gauge that Walmart sells separately but right next to the refrigerant.
Low refrigerant is known generally to cause delayed cooling, hence the initial idea to add refrigerant.
Before adding refrigerant, the pressure gauge showed a level that was somewhat low, but not concerningly so. Adding refrigerant made the needle go up a bit, but not by much. And adding further refrigerant (after letting the now-chilled can warm up again) did not move the needle further. This, even though one could hear the sound of gas flowing through the pressurized fill tube.
That was a few months ago and I’ve basically lived with it since. Now that I’m revisiting the issue, I wonder if it just needed more refrigerant. And further, I wonder if the system has a strange, partial leak where it doesn’t keep leaking below a certain point.
Anyway, like you I hope to find a solution. I hope you decide to be a little kinder to strangers trying to be helpful.
To be brief, I'm trying to avoid looking for a shop that can diagnose this system, that has already cost me enough. Likewise suggestions of 'what ifs', 'did you check this' and 'maybe it's this' from people unfamiliar with this vehicle were shown to have been of no help in other threads so I'd like to avoid that here.
I'm only looking for comments from people who have or have had direct experience with this particular problem with this generation vehicle, with its dual / front and rear cooling system, and if they'd found the solution.
I've only found 3 other people who'd posted about it so its not a common problem, but its not a fluke either.
