Quick trouble shooting with a friend

Open the hood, start the engine, AC Off

Observe the pulley on the AC compressor, center should not be turning.

Have friend turn AC on

Observe pulley, should be turning now, consistently.

If it doesn't pull in, many choices, including fuses and wiring

If it pulls in, but doesn't blow cold, other choices, including charge & compressor failure.

If it pulls in, then makes awful noises or stops spinning, compressor failure

 

If it pulls in, but doesn't blow cold, other choices, including charge & compressor failure.

Thanks. Now how do I determine if it's the charge or compressor failure?

 

Welcome to the club, my compressor went right after the warranty expired.

Toyota was no help, $2550 to fix,

 

I have the squeel and AC light blinking problem to on my 2005 - any chance on a recall notice on these?

 

Hissing is an indication of low charge in the system. Check the pressure in the system. Sounds like there is some freon left enough to engage the clutch, but not enough to cool the cabin.

 

I have a similar issue. Light on the AC control blinks and it blows warm air on ly. Then, the next time I try it the light glows solid and I get nice cold air from all vents. Then back to blinking and warm again.This has happened three times and lasts a few hours to several days, then reverts back to working perfectly. Had it to the dealer once. They could find nothing wrong since the blinking light had changed to solid by the time I got an appointment. Now its happening again and I have a service appointment a week away. It'll probably be OK by then. Any ideas I can pass on to the tech when I get there?

 

The exact same thing is what happened to me. In my case, it was the compressor clutch relay that was bad. It's in one of the fuse/relay boxes in the engine compartment... right behind the battery.

If you're not under warranty be prepared for a shocker: relay was about $90 when mine went bad. It's a common enough automotive relay that should go for $15 at the most. I just swapped it with another one and everything works great!

added: hey! just looked at the first link in ledvette's post... that's mine! haha

 

I think it's safe to say that if the light on the A/C is blinking then something is telling it to. And if something is telling it to blink then that means that something knows there's a problem. And if something knows there's a problem then I would find out what that something is and how it knows there's a problem and if it can pinpoint the problem or not.

I understand that the first step to fixing a problem is seeing it but I would say that if your explaining this to the dealership then they should've been able to tell you something last time you saw them. Even if they couldn't do a proper diagnosis they still should've been able to tell you something to watch for or something to document when it happened again so they could get a little closer to beginning a diagnosis.

here's a possible answer
And this makes it sound even more like the answer
And here it is again right here on TN

I'm glad to help but it probably would've saved you some time if you'd tried searching first.