2002 Hyundai Santa Fe AC Leak
“My wife’s car is a 2002 Hyundai Santa Fe which has served us well. About three weeks ago she was running the A/C when she pulled into a parking spot, a large amount of “smoke” and hissing started coming from under the hood. She shut off the car, called me, when I asked if it was still smoking, she said it stopped immediately when she shut it off. I told her to look under the car for water, and she said it was dry. I told her to lift the hood and tell me what she saw, and she said it was damp on the side of the engine away from where the A/C is located. I cannot find a spot where “something” was leaking. I hooked up a simple A/C recharge kit to it yesterday, and the compressor is fully running and the level of the refrigerant shows full after only 1/4 can of 134a was added. The A/C is not blowing cold at all. It was nice and cold before this happened. What should I do now. What do you think the issue is??”
Something definitely blew in the AC system, the hissing was the refrigerant leaking and the “smoke” was it evaporating into the atmosphere. Putting on one of those little cans is not an accurate way of measuring the refrigerant level (I assume the can tap had some sort of cheaper AC pressure gauge device built into it. You can only check AC pressures with accurate AC gauges hooked up to both the high side and the low side and see what both pressures are when both idling and runnning at say 2000 rpm or so. From where I’m sitting, I’d guess an AC hose or an ac seal blew in the area that was damp. So check that area closely, or inject some AC leak dye into the system and the dye will come out of the leaking area.
If the leak is on the “high-side”, would the compressor still kick on?? The pressure shows good on the “low-side” which takes the fill, and the compressor kicks on when the A/C is turned on inside the car. What I am thinking is that the leak- detector dye might be a waste of time.”
There are many different possible problems in an AC system. The ONLY way to attempt a correct diagnosis is by measuring both the high and low side pressures with the compressor running (hot wiring the compressor if necessary to get it to run.) Since you had a hissing sound and white “smoke” under the hood, something broke and caused an AC leak (since the AC stopped working right after.) You could have an internally blown compressor or a leak somewhere. You must measure both low and high pressures to attempt to discover the problem. If the high and low sides are the same low pressure with the compressor running, then the compressor is definitely shot. BUT, there are too many different possible problems to guess from where I’m sitting knowing only that the low side is “normal.”