No AC and now strange smell

[Notch]

I have a 2002 Jeep Liberty and a few days ago I was on the highway and had the air up fairly high and all of a sudden it just stopped blowing cold air. A friend said something about the evaporator freezing and to turn it off and then wait and try again. Sure enough I did this and the AC was blowing cold again all weekend.

Yesterday I am driving back home and the same thing happened. Only this time there was a horrible smell, sort of like a burnt electrical smell, and the AC stopped working and will not blow cold air at all any longer. The smell is persistent even while the AC is off now.

Any ideas? I know practically nothing about auto repair so any help or ideas is appreciated!

[Cjack350]

I have a 2002 Jeep Liberty and a few days ago I was on the highway and had the air up fairly high and all of a sudden it just stopped blowing cold air. A friend said something about the evaporator freezing and to turn it off and then wait and try again. Sure enough I did this and the AC was blowing cold again all weekend.

Yesterday I am driving back home and the same thing happened. Only this time there was a horrible smell, sort of like a burnt electrical smell, and the AC stopped working and will not blow cold air at all any longer. The smell is persistent even while the AC is off now.

Any ideas? I know practically nothing about auto repair so any help or ideas is appreciated!

The compressor may have gone bad, it may have been the bearings on the pulley..but most likely it's the compressor. With the engine running lift the hood and see if there is smoke coming from the pulley on the front of your AC.

[Notch]

The compressor may have gone bad, it may have been the bearings on the pulley..but most likely it's the compressor. With the engine running lift the hood and see if there is smoke coming from the pulley on the front of your AC.

I did not see any smoke at all. I did however notice that when it is running it is very noisy... like something is rattling around. The pulley looked as though it was moving smoothly.

[Notch]

No smoke... but there is a strange rattling sound that seems to be coming from the area of the compressor. The beelt seems to be moving smoothly however.

[CutterN55]

Compressor sounds toasted to me....
Make sure you have voltage on the wiring to the compressor when you are supposed to. If voltage is present when it should be, bad compressor.
When replacing it make sure you bleed off the pressure in the system being very carefull not to mess with the high pressure line(skinny one) very carefull!! Check the pessure on low side (fat one) with the guage that comes with the new cans of refrigerant. The low is no big deal, crack it a little and it will sound like disconnecting an air hose. Once system is bled off, disconnect the lines & swap out the compressor and get probably four 12 oz cans of R134 and top her off. Put in the first can and monitor pressure to see if you have any leaks. No sense in dumping all your cans into it and having it leak out. I think it should be between 25-40 psi. don't quote me on the numbers. Good luck.

[Notch]

Compressor sounds toasted to me....
Make sure you have voltage on the wiring to the compressor when you are supposed to. If voltage is present when it should be, bad compressor.
When replacing it make sure you bleed off the pressure in the system being very carefull not to mess with the high pressure line(skinny one) very carefull!! Check the pessure on low side (fat one) with the guage that comes with the new cans of refrigerant. The low is no big deal, crack it a little and it will sound like disconnecting an air hose. Once system is bled off, disconnect the lines & swap out the compressor and get probably four 12 oz cans of R134 and top her off. Put in the first can and monitor pressure to see if you have any leaks. No sense in dumping all your cans into it and having it leak out. I think it should be between 25-40 psi. don't quote me on the numbers. Good luck.

Thanks! Good info there... tomorrow we'll see what happens!

[Cjack350]

I just changed the compressor on my wife's Liberty a couple of months ago and you have to evacuate the system. Just pay someone to put it on a drier otherwise you could end up jacking up the whole shubang.