Kind of a long post but trying to explain what happened...
The performace of my A/C didn't seem to be very good the past few days. I've owend my '04 X3, two weeks now and when I got it, the A/C seemed OK. (but it wasn't extremely hot out when I test drove it) Today it was 93F outside and I got very little cooling from the drivers side and darn neat hot air from the passenges side. Checking the temps with a thermocouple confiremd it. Best it would do was 85 from the drivers side and 99 from the passenger side!! To make things more confusing, when I turned that temperature knob between the vents from three blue dots to three red dots, it
droped both temps 4 degrees. (to 81 drv, 95 pasx) WTF?
Searching the forums I found several posts that mentioned similar problems, (only on the X5) but no one really posted why there is a difference between the drivers and passengers side.
Since the A/C no longer was blowing cold, I hooked up gauges and it was reading 25 on the low side and 135 on the high. I don't know what BMW says it should be, but folks I talked to said that was low. I picked up a can of R134a and it took about 3/4 of it. Pressures were now ~ 45 and 180 and I was getting ~ 59F air from the drives side and ~ 68F air from the passengers. I wonder how long it will last.
Have other X3 owners had leaky A/C systems? X5 posts I found talked about needing the servicing valves replaced. Where are those located?
Does anyone know why the air from the passenger vents is warmer than the drivers? When you crank down the temp set point, it makes no sense to have the passenger side putting out warmer air. The system is fighting itself to cool the cabin! Grrrrrr. It's as if there is a vave that is ducting some of the passenger air over the heater core.
Thanks,
Chip