W210 EC light does not extinguish
 

new problem. when running the CCU the EC light stays on. No AC.

System has gone into safe shutdown of the compressor due to low refrigerant.

You can check the pressure from the control panel. The 210 is quite sophisticated, instead of the on-off pressure switch of the 12x series, the switch is analog and measures the pressure and even the temperature of the refrigerant.

Hold down REST for 5 seconds with the car operating. On some models you have to set both temperatures to 72 first (push up and down simultaneously on the left and then on the right). On mine you don't, YMMV.

You will see 01 on the left and some digits on the right, these are the inside air temp in the car (all temp in Farenheit) as detected at the grill by the dome light.
Push the left "auto" to advance the parameter and the right "auto" to back up.
02 is outside air temp (entering the air box above the hot engine, so it will likely be hotter than the OAT display on the cluster due to the fact the cluster OAT is sensed at the bumper)
03 is left heat core temp
04 is right heat core temp
05 is evaporator temp
06 is ECT temp
and 07 is refrigerant pressure in Bar (1 Bar = 14.7 psi or just say 15 to make it easy)
08 is refrigerant temp

another good one is 24, battery voltage

Push Rest again to exit

Take some readings and post em up, I'm sure one of the ac experts will chime in.

Ok, I got some numbers here. maybe someone smarter then I can tell me the 411 on this.

1 91

2 84

3 82

4 82

5 82

6 173

7 01

8 10 0

9 27

10 0.0

11 2.3

12 3.1

20 3.2

21 42

22 00

23 32

24 13.5

40 164

41 32

42 72

43 13 6

Any input I'd appreciate

IIRC #7 is refrigerant pressure. You're basically empty.

Keep your fingers crossed that the leak is not in the evap core.

Well if its the core then it's next years project. Iirc p.o said it was a slow leak, and took months to leak. So ill pressurize it and go from there I guess.

A couple of guys at BW used one of the refrigerants that has stop leak in it, for one of them it's been a few years and he's had to add a can since then, but no detrimental effects.

Add a can with the dye in it, that may point you to the leak.

The condenser is a fairly common site, pinholes that you can't find even with dye, the high-side hose is another at the compression joint, the evap core is the worst though.

Me, I'd probably try the stop leak and a can of dye. ;)

Good luck.

Nah, no stop leak, that stuff is nuts for down the road, I've seen some gnarly pictures of what that stuff does to the system when it hits air, ill opt for a refrigerant with the tracer in it, that will tell me where (hopefully) the leak is, then ill repair it right.

added some refridgerant. still no dice.

Whats the actual value for #7 now and how much refrig did you add.

What HVAC error codes (eb-xxxx) do you have. When erased, which ones come back?

I don't know how to check error codes, how do I do this?

got the codes, EB1 416 241 234

cleared, they did not come back.
EC light is out now. air is not that cold.. OAT 71.
1 80

2 78

3 103

4 84

5 80

6 175

7 05

8 87

9 27

10 0.0

11 2.4

12 3.8

20 3.2

21 42

22 00

23 32

24 13.5

40 164

41 32

42 72

43 136

We go through this same routine on our 1998 car. I just have the system evacuated and refilled with the proper amount, I think it's 2.2 lbs. It does a reasonable job cooling thru the summer.

Yes, there is a minute leak somewhere and they've done the dye tracer but still can't find the problem indicating it's located somewhere that's going to be $$$$ to repair.

It's nice these cars have such large sunroofs :P

(the stop leak stuff makes the guys at the repair shop really mad, and if you confess to using it they won't hook up to the car ;) )

I dont want to use the stop leak, that stuff is just really gnarly stuff. there's some pictures floating around on why the shops hate the stuff. if it works it's great but I prefer the proper fixes so it dosnt come down to using stop leak.

Good. At least the codes cleared and the comp isn't dead and its cooling a lil bit. You didn't say how much you added to yours?

Later in its life, I used to dump most of a lb into mine each summer. It does hold 1 kilo.

The proper way to charge the system is as Uber said. Evcuate and refill. Most of us just add some til it works better.

My mistake one thing I think was not pulling a vacuum. I think I'm airlocked or something. not cooling. added about 1.5lb it's enough to make the compressor run. not throwing any errors still. so thats a good thing