Blinking A/C Light w/Video

[TheForger]

I am driving my 2000 Toyota Land Cruiser with 181k miles through a torrential downpour (4-6" of fast flowing water into the streets -- I exaggerated a bit in the video). Than all of the sudden I feel the air in the cabin turn from recirc to fresh air. I look down and sure enough, it is now on fresh air and the A/C light is blinking. I decide to turn off the entire HVAC system and luckily it was cool outside because of the rain so it was bearable. I was already on my way to a doctors appt. and after I was done there I started the truck up and everything worked perfectly. What could be the cause of this? I drove in the right lane up a relatively steep hill (stupid I know but I got an SUV, tires, and the driving skills which made me believed I could do it; also I was going about 5-10mph the entire trip) and water was splashing up on my windshield. And by water I mean A LOT of it. To the point where I had to come to a complete stop (wipers on high) on multiple occasions. Luckily no water in the intake but could this have possibly damaged the A/C compressor or anything in the HVAC system?

Thanks in advance for any input you guys might have about this!

 

[DirtDawg]

Might just be a freak incident. I wouldn't really pay attention unless it occurs again.

 

[jLB]

Occasionally my LX will do the "flashing AC light" after very hard acceleration from a stop. In my case I can turn off the AC compressor and turn it back on and everything is happy again.

It is my understanding that there is some logic built in that monitors compressor speed vs expected speed (by engine RPM) and it will disable the compressor if it senses this condition (compressor turning slower than expected). In my case I think a little belt slip is causing the "flashing AC light".

I wonder if a wet belt might have caused a little slip which would trigger the system to turn off the compressor?


You may want to look through this thread as well:

Flashing A/C Light

 

[AMGAndrew]

Occasionally my LX will do the "flashing AC light" after very hard acceleration from a stop. In my case I can turn off the AC compressor and turn it back on and everything is happy again.

It is my understanding that there is some logic built in that monitors compressor speed vs expected speed (by engine RPM) and it will disable the compressor if it senses this condition (compressor turning slower than expected). In my case I think a little belt slip is causing the "flashing AC light".

I wonder if a wet belt might have caused a little slip which would trigger the system to turn off the compressor?


You may want to look through this thread as well:

Flashing A/C Light

Winner. I'm sure it was from the wet belt slipping. It's a self preservation feature in case the ac compressor fails and locks up. Hopefully the trigger will disengage the clutch before the locked pulley shreds the belt.

I have a couple more thoughts for that flashing ac light thread as I've been chasing the flashing ac light gremlin as well. I'll post over there later.

 

[TheForger]

I'm going to go with @DirtDawg here and blow it off as a weird accident most likely caused by belt slippage. What @jLB stated above makes the most logical sense to me - there is a sensor somewhere that detects belt slippage by monitoring the compressors speed. In my circumstance I believe a little slippage definitely could've occurred due to the conditions I was driving in. It hasn't acted up since the first time it did it so I'm sure it's fine now, just wanted to see what everyone had to say about it. Thanks again for the help!