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My Dad has an Oct '97 Ford Mondeo 1.8, and every time he switches the air conditioning on, the car appears to "judder" and runs very unevenly. As soon as it is switched off, it reverts back to running smoothly. It's been checked out by a Ford dealer, who says "surging" is normal when the air conditioning is switched on and off. Does any body have any better suggestions?
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Dear Beth,
Is Dad switching the Aircon on with the fan on full speed setting already? If not I don't know and I'll leave the rest of the technical stuff to the guys who know, but I respectfully suggest that the dealer is talkng out of his hat!
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Look/search back over previous posts. This was only covered the other day.
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The air conditioning compressor puts a significant loading on the engine of any car, especially if the air conditioning hasnt been running for a while. Whilst air conditioning is most suited to bigger engine cars, the designers should take this into account when designing the systems. Often smaller cars such as fiesta's with air con will actually perform less when the air con is on, acceleration is slightly worse for example.
The engine is probably juddering because the idling speed is set quite low and the additional load of the compressor is affecting it. Try putting the rear window demister on instead and see if that has the same effect, perhaps the alternator isnt doing its job well enough. Another possibility is lubrication, the air con system is lubricated as far as I know by the refrigerant. If the system isnt frequently used, lubrication will suffer. It is recommended the air con is used at least 10 minutes every month, despite the weather.
Simon
SVPworld
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Uncle hired a Matiz with aircon in Italy.
Although it made a difference of about 10kph to the top speed (145kph on the clock rather than 155) and acceleration wasn't as good, ('good' in relative terms :P), it was still smooth and ran pretty much the same.
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I think the Ford dealer is correct.
However, just because they all do it doesnt mean that it is ok.
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