A/C not cold. Compressor clutch not spinning.
 

Hi,
My A/C is blowing just fine but the air it is blowing is not cold (~80 degree air). My A/C compressor clutch (outside circle by the belt) is not spinning. The auxiliary fan is spinning all the time (whether A/C is on or off). I have read many posts on this type of issue but could not find out how to locate the A/C compressor relay (is it behind the glove box?) in order to short it and try to get the clutch to spin.
I have tried adding refrigerant but interestingly the pressure in the system at the low connector was well above 55psi (actually above 100psi), so I let pressure out at the high connector while also adding refrigerant at the low connector. Now pressure is 50psi at the low connector.
Any advice or direction on locating the A/C compressor relay (or another way to test the A/C compressor clutch?)?
Thank you.

I forgot to say that my X5 is a 2003 3.0i (e53)

There's a wire leading to the compressor. That wire is for the electromagnetic clutch. If you have 12 volts at the wire when the ac is switch on your relay and fuse are fine.

Could be the air gap for the clutch is out of spec and now it can't engage the pulley.

I checked the wire going into the A/C compressor with my multimeter (it took me a while because my better half had taken the X5 to pick up our son). The wire (picture attached with white circle around wire) had no voltage going to it (I checked for DC voltage and got none).
Hopefully that is good news and might mean the issue is electrical instead of with the compressor itself. Maybe the high pressure in my A/C (100psi) caused a relay to fail?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Could be the heating ventilation control module.

Here's a video on checking for power for the AC system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGnNGdeS18Y

The compress is a variable compress and the clutch is energized all the time unless you depress A/C button on panel to off.
The auxiliary fan should not come on until the high pressure side gets to about 150PSI.
Also static reading (engine off) on low side might read 70-90PSI and will drop down to 30-40PSI after engine start with AC on(compressor energized).
Compressor will shut down if you get too low of a PSI on low side or a out of range on high side.
If you have gauges you could jumper 12 volts into the single wire on compressor to energize clutch and look at the low/high pressure readings.

Thank you. It turns out that I was wrong about the auxiliary fan turning on. The fan I thought was the auxiliary fan turned out to be the engine cooling fan. The auxiliary fan (outside of radiator) does not seem to be turning on (and as mentioned the A/C compressor clutch is not spinning).
I am going to try to jumper 12volts from the battery's positive terminal to the wire leading into the A/C compressor. Is this a good idea?

Since both the compressor and auxiliary fan do not seem to be turning on it seems like I am in the same boat as some other posters and I can troubleshoot the fan to see if that is the issue.

Just did some more investigating... My auxiliary fan does come on but not immediately (it takes about a minute) and when it does come on it starts, stops, pauses, starts, stops, pauses, starts and then runs somewhat continuously (it almost seemed like something was loose). So it may be o.k. and it is the signal to the fan which has a problem or the fan is failing.
(note: when I turned the A/C off on the temperature control panel in the X5 the auxiliary fan would stop and not come back on until I turned the A/C back on. Then it would weakly start, stop, start, stop, start.)

At no time did the A/C compressor clutch start to spin.

I tried to jumper the A/C compressor by connecting a wire to the positive battery terminal under the hood (on the firewall) with the A/C compressor wire (I used a 14 gauge wire as the jumper).

So I am once again sort of lost in what to do next: further troubleshoot the fan, the electrical, or the A/C compressor clutch.

So when you tried to jumper the compressor with the 12 volt did tbe clutch engaged?

The fan does that at start-up so it sounds like its working OK.
I have same question about clutch energizing when you jumped it.
It won't hurt compressor if you run it for a few seconds to verify clutch operation.
If clutch does energizes and compressor sounds OK its time to put gauge on system to checkout out the low/high sides.
Also are you sure you had good contact on A/C plug when you checked it for 12V and that the meter was working properly? More then once I have had meter in wrong mode(senior moment) or bad leads.

Thank you. The clutch did not engage when I jumped it from the positive battery terminal under the hood. The wire sparked when I accidentally touched most any metal under the hood, but nothing happened when I touched it to the wire leading to the A/C compressor wire (no Sparks and no action of the compressor or clutch on the end of the compressor).

No spark at the compressor when you tried jumping it will lead to me think it's a bad clutch coil. Looks like you will need to replace the compressor. You can replace just the clutch, but since you need to remove the compressor in order to pull the entire clutch off you might as well replace the compressor.

One final test, use your voltmeter and set it to the ohm setting. Now touch the wire on the compressor and any engine metal ground. Do you have a reading or is it an open circuit? An open circuit will mean that the coil in the clutch has a broken winding.

I agree with the open coil, however there should be 12 volts at the plug which connects to the compressor. The only time it wouldn't be there is power off at the control panel or a too low or too high pressure reading.
Anyway if you do replace compressor don't go with a cheap one like I did.
It came back to bit me in the you know where.
My situation was different when I replaced compressor but old compressor (Calsonic) had a duct temp. of 40 degrees, vice the generic I replaced it with of 50 degrees. It still cools but takes a lot longer to do so.
The old saying you get what you pay for, this machine of mine looks for a parts donation about every 8 months or so. Got 103K(2006) on it and almost got rid of it until I found out that I wasn't going to get crap for a trade in.
Its a love hate relationship and the pain goes away when I get behind the wheel.

Checked everything again. No 12 volts on the wire to the compressor. No resistance (ohms) on the wire to the compressor. I'll try to jumper it one more time and then proceed to take it to a mechanic with the expectation that the compressor will need to be replaced. Ugg this is the first issue with my X5 (owned it 3 years) that I haven't been able to fix DIY.
Thank you again for your help. I'll post back what the mechanic does to it.

I'm still working on this. I tried to check the clutch gap on the compressor but there doesn't seem to be any gap at all. I even put my hand on it while my wife pushed the a/c button on and off several times (with the car in auxiliary mode, engine off). Nothing moved and it seems like the clutch should have locked/unlocked.

Is the clutch gap on anyone else's X5? Should it be closing and opening the gap when I turn the A/C on and off?

Just tested on my e39 (same m54 3.0 motor)
Car cold, been parked all day. Front fan did not start right away with AC but rather it took 2 mins of car running with AC on before the fan twitched a few times and then ran.

Now for compressor. The gap stays the same but when the clutch is engaged the front portion of it (closest to bumper) also spins.

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...354279ade6.jpg

This pict is from the passenger side view, engine on left/bumper to the right. With the car running: the AC is off the front portion stays still, with AC on the front portion also spins.

Also noted the from electric fan is variable speed and I recall something about it running off AC pulses, so do not apply 12v to test the electric fan.

Gluck

You have two problems.
I think you let out to much Freon when you drop it from 100PSI to 50PSi in the static mode(engine off)
Low pressure will not allow 12V to the compressor.
In a normal mode the compressors is on all the time when engine is running unless you turn off AC on the Temp. control panel.
I suspect the clutch is bad and you just compounded the problem by letting out too much Freon. The system only takes about a pound. (.97lb)

I ordered a new clutch coil from AllForAuto (Adam) per the thread from Katatan. It arrives on Friday. I won't have a chance to install it til Sunday, but I will update this thread then with the result - hopefully it fixes my issue and this thread ends up helping others down the road.:thumbup: