Air conditioner driver side not working right (3 Viewers)

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Joined
Dec 15, 2020
Threads
9
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45
Location
Baton Rouge, LA and Gunnison, CO
My 2006 GX470 air conditioner has started acting up. The passenger blows cold and keeps set temperature ok, it blows as cold as 30ºF. But the driver side is not as cold, 20-40 ºF warmer. But after about 15 minutes running the driver side will get colder but still 10 or so degrees warmer than the passenger side.
It doesn't matter if on fresh, recirculate, bi-level, dual or separate temp settings. The temp will warm up if I set the temp setting higher on both sides so it looks like the damper is operating.
Any thoughts?
 
I am having the exact same issue on my 2009, I am bringing it in next week to get checked out. But in talking to the mechanic, he believes it is a low freon issue, and likely indicative of a leak in the system somewhere. Seems to agree with a few other peoples accounts...
 
Have you checked the blend door motors? Drivers side footwell, up against the center console. Pop off the plastic cover and you’ll see the servo motor. Make sure it isn’t stuck and is moving as you change the temp on the hvac control panel.

if your passenger side is ice cold, it’s not a leak. The main symptom of the motors going bad is one side not changing temp up / down with the control panel but the other side not changing temp correctly (or, if the motor has failed completely, not changing temp at all). A lot of folks get the click clack noise of the gears in the motor not catching, but that’s not a guarantee.
 
Have you checked the blend door motors? Drivers side footwell, up against the center console. Pop off the plastic cover and you’ll see the servo motor. Make sure it isn’t stuck and is moving as you change the temp on the hvac control panel.

if your passenger side is ice cold, it’s not a leak. The main symptom of the motors going bad is one side not changing temp up / down with the control panel but the other side not changing temp correctly (or, if the motor has failed completely, not changing temp at all). A lot of folks get the click clack noise of the gears in the motor not catching, but that’s not a guarantee.
For me at least, there is no grinding noise at all, and I have run the AC self diagnostic with no codes. The driver side will come and go on getting cold implying that it is not a blend door. The rear also does not get cold.
 
Mine never gave codes either. Lo and behold, they weren’t working, and visual inspection confirmed that.

the op on here said their driver side is consistently much warmer than passenger. Doesn’t get cold at all, doesn’t fluctuate. IMO, that sounds like the blend door is stuck. So hot and cold air are getting mixed together, which is why it cools off some, but not like the passenger side.

cant speak to the issue you’re having. If it gets ice cold and then hot again, that doesn’t sound like the blend motors. All but 1 (the 1 up between the blower motor and passenger side of the car) are easy enough to check visually to confirm they’re working. Cant hurt to check.

drop the glovebox, pull the panel on the drivers side. Cycle the hvac up and down. Worst case you burn 30 minutes to confirm they’re not the issue.
 
I am having the exact same issue on my 2009, I am bringing it in next week to get checked out. But in talking to the mechanic, he believes it is a low freon issue, and likely indicative of a leak in the system somewhere. Seems to agree with a few other peoples accounts...
I finally got mine checked out, and it is a leaking front evaporator. It had about 50% as much freon as it should.
 
I finally got mine checked out, and it is a leaking front evaporator. It had about 50% as much freon as it should.
ah man, that's a bummer. pulling the dash sucks for labor costs. went through that repair in 2019. on the plus side, the hvac in this car works like a dream once it's fixed.
 
I had this 'no ac on driver's side' problem last year. The problem magically went away after a few days. Not so this year. Here's a great YouTube video that shows how to troubleshoot and replace the driver's side blend door servo.



UPDATE; Just checked the driver's side servo operation. Servo is fine. There's full servo arm movement when switching from max heat to max cool. I can manually move the blend door from hot to cold with no sticking. This is the warmest day of the year and today I can tell there is 'some' cooling on the driver's side. I'm going to replace the cabin filter and check the 3 actuators on the passenger side. I've read that one of the 3 passenger side actuators controls ac air to the driver's side. O.K. The arms on all three actuators are visible with the glove box removed, that's a plus. My topmost actuator doesn't move in any mode. Not sure what this actuator does but removing it will be a pain. It's interesting that this is the only actuator that has gobs of white grease on the slider thing. This one does the most work? More research needed.
 
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I had this 'no ac on driver's side' problem last year. The problem magically went away after a few days. Not so this year. Here's a great YouTube video that shows how to troubleshoot and replace the driver's side blend door servo.



UPDATE; Just checked the driver's side servo operation. Servo is fine. There's full servo arm movement when switching from max heat to max cool. I can manually move the blend door from hot to cold with no sticking. This is the warmest day of the year and today I can tell there is 'some' cooling on the driver's side. I'm going to replace the cabin filter and check the 3 actuators on the passenger side. I've read that one of the 3 passenger side actuators controls ac air to the driver's side. O.K. The arms on all three actuators are visible with the glove box removed, that's a plus. My topmost actuator doesn't move in any mode. Not sure what this actuator does but removing it will be a pain. It's interesting that this is the only actuator that has gobs of white grease on the slider thing. This one does the most work? More research needed.

It was hard for me to believe that a slight under- charge could cause the driver's side to not blow cool even though the passenger side was fine. Didn't make sense to me at all. I did a lot of reading and a lot of troubleshooting and finally added refrigerant from Walmart. Problem went away. It came back later, and detected a very small leak at the low side shrader valve. Fussed with it a little, added more Walmart refrigerant and she's been blowing cold at all vents for months now. That's my driver side AC story.
 
I can also add my own story with this same issue, not only on my 2006 470 but also on my 2003 GM product
 
It was hard for me to believe that a slight under- charge could cause the driver's side to not blow cool even though the passenger side was fine. Didn't make sense to me at all. I did a lot of reading and a lot of troubleshooting and finally added refrigerant from Walmart. Problem went away. It came back later, and detected a very small leak at the low side shrader valve. Fussed with it a little, added more Walmart refrigerant and she's been blowing cold at all vents for months now. That's my driver side AC story.
Yes, I think I have the same problem - low refrigerant. I rechecked the 3 solenoids on the passenger side today and they are all working correctly.
 
UPDATE: I dug out my 12-year-old Harbor Freight ac gauge set (still works!) My low side was reading about 18. Bought a can of R134 at Advance for $10.76 with a discount code. Topped up the ac to where the low side is reading about 38. Had to run the GX at 2000 rpm for the cooling to really start working. Using an infrared temp meter, I can read 26 degrees F on the driver's side. The driver's is now slightly cooler than the passenger side! Have to see how this works out in the coming weeks. There has to be a leak in the system, but hopefully not too bad.

Sending out a thanks to the posters that got me away from thinking about solenoids.
 
Another data point…

I was experiencing warm on the drivers side and cold on pass. Servo’s checked out fine. Popped a gauge on, ~ 14 lbs psi on the low side.

Actually took it to a shop and had them machine evacuate, vacuum and recharge.

Ice cubes now.
 

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