jixxxer

so seems the air conditioning went out in the maxima! Checked fuses, disconnected, reconnected battery but still blowing hot air! And its hot down here right now. Gonna send it to the shop, but was wondering if anyone else had this problem.

lightonthehill

You didn't say what year your Maxima was, but since you joined MAXIMA.ORG in late 2008, you may have a 2009. It may be that all you need is a shot of that stuff cars use in ACs these days in place of the old freon. That would not be unusual after four or five years. If you need fluid more often than every four or five years, you may have a slow leak.

At any rate, with the summers we have these days, I would not survive without AC. I will never forget the misery of the old days. My '49 Studebaker, '53 Chevy, '55 Pontiac, '57 Chevy, 61 Pontiac and 64 Pontiac did NOT have AC, and I drove those cars coast-to-coast many times. My '66 Olds Delta 88 was my first car with air conditioning.

I remember when the AC in that Olds failed in downtown Phoenix on a holiday weekend. 2000 miles from home, four people and two weeks luggage in the car and outside temp at 116 degrees. We made a quick climb up the Mogollon Rim to Flagstaff, where it was around 75 degrees, and stayed there until service departments reopened the following Tuesday.

We GOTTA have AC these days.

1996blackmax

iTrader: (2)

I use my A/C everyday. I would not be happy if it went out. I hope it's an easy fix for you. Can you hear the clutch engaging on your compressor when you push the A/C button?

jixxxer

Yes its an 09, brought it to a local shop and its the compressor clutch! $500 fix. Very dissapointed.

dr_2010SV

Iv'e always wondered about A/C longevity being that it's a "default-on" set-up with these cars. I don't always remember to turn it off when I don't need it.

lightonthehill

Times have changed. Cars built up into the 1990s were not usually intended to have the AC on full-time. But many cars built these days are intended to have the AC on most (if not all) of the time - to remove humidity and cool the car the warm half of the year, and simply remove humidity (preventing the windows from fogging up) the cool half of the year, which is a safety issue.

Nissan began building 2009 7th gen Maximas in January of 2008. That gave them a supply of cars to test and check with before turning the assembly line up to full speed in March in order to have an ample supply available for each of their hundreds of dealers for the first day of sale for the 2009s (June 26, 2008).

So we have a lot of '09s on the road that are actually entering their sixth summer. Having said that, we would still expect the AC compressor clutch to still be working at this point, even in your hot, sticky, humid, oppressive Louisiana summers. Until the last few weeks, we had not seen many AC problems here on the ORG, but we are now getting a sprinkling of them.

I hope my '09 AC does not go out, because I have a week-long trip coming up in June (family reunion) and another week-long trip in July (college reunion). At my old age, I would not last long in a non-air conditioned car in the summer heat we have these days. We reached a muggy 108 degrees twice last June here at my place in middle Georgia - we had never reached that temp here before last summer.

Sorry you are stuck with that unexpected (and undeserved) cash outlay.

dr_2010SV

Right...funny that I find I use the A/C as much in the winter (or wet season) to keep the windows clear due to humidity as I do in the summer months for cooling.

SteveHas

My 09' SV with tech package just lost cold air today.
I can't hear the clutch, but I definitely hear the engine rpms increase when I turn it on.
I live in New England, so its not being taxed as much as LA. but I do have 99,980 miles on the beauty.

What should I be doing to check for clutch issues?