I have a 2001 F250 Super Duty with 65,000 miles on it. 5000 miles to go until service agreement runs out. The air conditioner on this truck has never gotten real cold. I took it to my dealer a couple of weeks ago to get it looked at before the agreement terminates, and they told me that it was working great. Does anyone know what the temp. (blowing out of the vents) is supposed to be? I measured mine and it was about 60 degrees. It just doesn't cool a crew cab off much. What could the problem be? Any help would be appreciated, thanks

 

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Greg, Your discharge temp should be below 50 degrees. Try your MAX A/C setting... This usually helps some. I recently tested my crewcab on a 100+ degree day and got 46-48 degree discharge temps.

 

I took the temp. with the max air on. Would recharging help?

 

You need to know exactly what the pressure is before you go charging it. Its likely you will make it worse. You wont see 48 degree vent temps until you have been driving a few minutes. Set it on recirculate, that will allow it to cool, already cool air, making it colder. If you let it run on auto mode, it will likely pull outside air. If it has to cool hot air, then remoce humidity from it, you won't get very cold temps.

 

On my way home from work last night, I placed the digital temp. probe into one of the vents. I had it on max air for about 40 mins. and found that my temp. went from the coolest it would go to (55 degrees) to around 63 degrees when I was moving. Curious, I placed the temp probe into a 1995 escort and found that the temp. dropped down to 39 degrees in a matter of 5 min. I also found that our 2001 Yucon recorded about the same 40 degrees. Both the other autos that I tested didn't change much while driving. A couple weeks ago, I took my truck into the dealership to have this looked at under warrenty. They said that nothing was wrong. They told me that they even tried to charge it and if I wanted the system evacuated, it would cost me around $200 - (I thought I had a warrenty). Why would my system need to be evacuated and why wouldn't this be covered under my warrenty program? I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack, but I do believe that something is wrong. If my 2001 f250 was charged when I bought it, it should still be full of coolant now. If I lost coolant, there would be a leak somewhere, right? - covered under warrenty? What else could this be? Any insight would be appreciated, thanks.

 

Mine wont go below 57 degrees on a 90 degree day, on max air, thats after running truck for 25 min., but the air is cool enough for me, Craig.

 

The reason they evacuate the system is to get any moisture out. Also, they can pull a vacuum on it and test for leaks that way. Moreover, its best this way because they can put the exact amount of refrigerant back in by volume. It probably holds 32oz. If there is a problem witht the system, the pressures can be off which can cause them to undercharge or overcharge the system which will effect proper cooling
Check your radiator and condesor, make sure the fins are clean and clear of debris, mud, leaves, etc. If the air doesnt go across them much, cooling will suffer.

 

I have on '01 F250 and had a similar problem. I checked the refrigerant and found it was .2 lbs low, this is not enough to make a difference. Further checking revealed the recirculating door was not opening. Hence the AC is trying to cool 100 F air.
The problem was with the function selector switch. In the Max AC mode it was not connecting the vaccum to the vaccum mortor for the damper. All other modes work fine. Once I got vaccum to the operator , it works great.
New switch will be ordered next week.

 

Thanks for your reply. How did you know this? Is there a way for me to test it or just see if it is working?

 

Under the passenger side dash there is a plastic shield that has 2 plastic screws into the under side of the glove box. Remove these screws and the plastic shield. Looking up toward the fire wall you will see the vacuum motor and behind it the damper.
If you can see the fan cage then the door is open and working properly. If its closed and the function switch is in Max AC then you have a problem.

 

I have a 2004 F250 my air is fine while going down the hwy., but if you stop for a long red light or for any other reason it blows out warm air. Does anyone have an answer for this. I took it to my dealer last week. They kelp it all day and said nothing was wrong with it. I don't agree.

 

you didnt say whether it has automatic temp control or not if it does it could be the control itself i have heard of them going bad if its not i am not sure but i would have i evacuated and charged just to make sure the moisture is out of the system good luck deno

 

You need to chk a few things!
1)chk to make sure the blend door within heat/ac box is actually opening and closing!
There were reports of the actuator arm breaking. or as others have stated not getting vacum to move
2)chk to make sure the compressor is not short cycling due to low pressure or high pressure switch being bad. or low refrigerant
3)also there is a a small orfice(capillary substitute) within the sytem that can become clogged causing false high pressures within the system
4)This one is a key to a future fix for you all of the older Superduty's had a less than efficeint ac in them.understand that the heater core flows hotwater all the time.
There is a fix to put a vacum operated valve in the heater core hose to shut the flow of hotwater to the core itself.This fix will freeze you out of the truck.
Do a search on this site for the fix.Not a Ford fix though.

Rich

 

I put a ball valve in the line to the heater core and it dropped my vent temps substantially. Pics are in my gallery. I might replace it with a solenoid valve on a switch someday, but in Texas, I can usually just leave it closed.