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Climate Control Issue

Speed16

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Hi guys,
I have skimmed though the other posts and cant find anyone already having this problem. My Calais V, when getting in the car after it sitting in the hot sun for quite a while is set to 21 degrees as normal which I am comfortable with. However after about 5 minutes of the aircon working hard to drop the temp it just cuts out.

What I have discovered when driving with it on recycled air there is not a thing coming out of the vents however when I put it on fresh air I get a slight breeze of freezing icy cold air coming though. This leads me to believe it is a fan issue and not an aircon issue.

I have taken it to Holden who plugged in the tech2 which indicates there are no problems at all except for a few low voltage readouts which they say is normal. They have installed software version 014.019.133 for me which was ment to fix it however the problem is still there. I have been charged for a diagnosis and software update which cost over $100 that I wasn't happy about.

Has anyone else had this problem and if so what have you done to fix it or try and fix it?

Thanks.
 

lein

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Does it appear that the air speed at the vents slowly drops off to nothing even though you can hear the fan?

The evaporator could be freezing up, and becoming a solid block of ice. When you go to fresh air the outside air being warmer starts to thaw it and you get flow back.
 

Ash84

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since the weather has started to heat up this has happened to me a couple of times now, its rather annoying but I haven't been bothered to chase it up with Holden. If you find out how to fix it please let me know!
 

vn4250

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i have the same thing happened a few times last summer and this summer with my omega. now i just dj the fan speed dial very quickly min to max back & forth to get the air con working again, that's my fix (temporarily). i'm not sure how it would work with the higher series climate controls.

was just playing around, i was thinking could it possibly be the ambient/cabin temp sensor affected by the extreme giving false or high readings or error to the hvac to cut out???? just a thought??? i really need to find out where the ambient/cabin temp sensor is located to see if it has something to do with it? anyone with hvac schematics/electrical diagrams for the ve???
 

TinSnips

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Could be an issue with the vent doors sticking - try resetting them by holding the rear de-mist button until you hear the vents move around - they'll relearn where they're supposed to be.

However, I had a problem which had similar symptoms that you describe - a very slight breeze of icy air - on an older commodore that I owned, when I had the air con replaced. The guys that did it forgot to install a regulator. Which went unnoticed by me until I drove down to Golburn on the 22nd of december (etched in my memory!) on what I'd describe as a ludicrously hot day, and had to pull over to thaw out the engine bay as ice had built up inside and was blocking the flow of air into the cabin. I was pulled over in the macca's truck stop on the hume hwy, trying to shift ice out of the car - wished I had a camera that day!
 

NORTI

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the owners manual actually talks about the aircon cutting out under load. I wouldnt think normal driving in the heat would be under load, but uphill towing etc would.
 

cashie

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I've had this happen in my ssv, usually just turned the climate off and on to make it come back on..
It must be a "known" problem noting the number of us with the same issue...
I'd be pissed if I spent $100 for a software flash that achieved nothing.
 

Speed16

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vn4250
Valid point with ajusting the aircon however since climate control is all computer controlled that didn't have any effect (manually adjusting the temp and fan speed). I did however press the OFF button and turned it immediately back on still with no success but when I turned it off for about a minute the system did fire back into life perfectly, only to have the fan cut out again about 3 or 4 minutes later. Repeating this process until the cabin temp dropped to around 30 degrees and the fan speed automatically started slowing down gradually the system worked fine afterwards.

TinSnips
Im not sure its the vent doors as you can hear the fan actually cut out and adjusting the system to C and manually adjusting the vent positions and fan speeds didn't seem to help either. I tried resetting the vents anyway the way you suggested when the car was working fine however I am yet to test if this has worked as it hasn't been a hot or sunny day today.

NORTI
This has to do with when you accelerate at full throttle the car will temporarily disable the aircon to give that little bit more power to the wheels. The aircon cuts back in once you release the throttle a little.

Another interesting note is in my old VS commodore the fan speed adjuster started playing up on cold days. I found out that it uses a heatsink in one of the ducts to help keep the fan speed regulator fairly cool as there is a lot of power flowing through the system. When it started playing up I either had no fan or full fan, 1, 2, and 3 didn't do a thing. This is a problem in winter because when the heater is on the heat actually heated up the heatsink and thats what caused the problem. It didn't happen instantly but after a few years the system begun to fail.

I know this cant be the case with mine for so many reasons but what if it is something similar?

I will be going to my Holden dealer in the next few days, hopefully they can help out. If I do find an answer I'll let you guys know.
 

vn4250

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Another interesting note is in my old VS commodore the fan speed adjuster started playing up on cold days. I found out that it uses a heatsink in one of the ducts to help keep the fan speed regulator fairly cool as there is a lot of power flowing through the system. When it started playing up I either had no fan or full fan, 1, 2, and 3 didn't do a thing. This is a problem in winter because when the heater is on the heat actually heated up the heatsink and thats what caused the problem. It didn't happen instantly but after a few years the system begun to fail.

hmmm, maybe it could be that the car when parked in hot weather for a while for the inside cabin to be hot as an oven that actually the cabin blower fan (not the aircon) cannot operate at very high temperature and is needed to cool down a bit to start up again. i wonder if this too have a heatsink or something like a regulator to tell it it is safe to operate again.
 

88GreenVN

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My brother jusr sold his Calais V as Holden could not fix (read would not) the climate control. It failed badly and on top of the 5 flat batteries - car just had to go. It only had 30,000kms on it - but the car electrics was rubbish and Holden could not be bothered to fix it.
 
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