How cold is your AC at idle?
 

Today I was stuck in alot of afternoon traffic and the vent temps were like 65 degrees. It was about 92 degrees outside, once moving the vents temps came down to about 45 degrees. So how is your AC at idle?

Last I checked mine was at 90F ambient, with 38F at the vent while stopped and idling with the fan on mid-speed. That's with factory 134a. The high-side pressure went to 14 bar, then the auxiliary fan started and continued to run on low speed.

what year car?

its always gonna like you describe at idle since no fresh air is coming in. Once you are driving it will go down

Mine is a '96 W210.

Plenty of fresh air comes in with the blower. I had it at mid-scale.

new cars don't count, most new cars come with that "freeze your a$$ off within 1 minute of being turned on" option.

On an 80 degree day, it was about 50 at idle, but I wasn't idling for very long. I'll have to pay attention more. And that's with the ES in the '85 TD and the helpful input you gave me :beerchug:

^^^glad I could help.

1986 300sdl. converted to 134A. 92 degrees outside today, 75% humidity.
At Idle 62 degrees. after 5 miles on the interstate at 60mph 46 degrees.

The coldest I have seen is early morning at 70 degrees outside, 90% humidity, 38 degrees.

I have seen 35 at the vents before but it wasn't very hot outside, maybe 65 degrees.

If you are running an old system converted to R134a you will see poor performance at idle - some use an oversized condensor and claim that helps.

If you are still running R12 and have poor performance at idle first clean the fins on your condensor out well and make sure the aux fan is functional. Then check the operating pressures to make sure the system is properly charged. If so you may have a partially clogged expansion valve - if you see high side pressures too high and low side too low. A properly working older system on R12 should run very cold at idle even in hot weather. If you are seeing temps much over 45* at the vents then something is amiss.

New? It's 13 years old.

"New" is a relative term on this board ;)

You should see my family roll their eyes when I proclaim that something I own is "brand new" - like my HI-FI VCR :D

I found that making the electric fans come on high speed on my car helped the idle AC temps by about 4* or so.

-Jason