2010 Air condition whine and not cool enough

Apr 14, 2019
24
1
Hey all, bought the Ibiza back in April when it was still pretty cold so I've only used the a.c. recently as it's getting warmer. It'll sometimes whine all the time when active. On hot days (close to 30°C) I don't think it cools the cabin enough. So I gave the dealer where I bought it a call and they said they'll check it under warranty, although they were certainly not happy lol.

I'm posting this to prepare myself for when they call me and say it runs fine. I've never driven a car where the a.c. whines when active and the air isn't cool enough to bring the cabin to a comfortable level. I found the air blowing on the passenger side warmer as well. Let me know if you guys have some knowledge I can counter the dealer with.
 

RUM4MO

Active Member
Jun 4, 2008
7,784
983
South Scotland
Maybe a difficult question to answer, if I bought an Ibiza in April 2019 and it was a 2010 model, I would have expected the selling car dealer to have checked it over and surely they understand that that should, at that age of car, include giving it an AC service which would have included recovering the gas vac'ng it out and filling it with the correct weight of R134A, if they had done that, or if they have a record of have doing that work on that car, then that would clear this "was it or was it not" checked before the sale took place. After 9 years, the AC will have lost some of its original weight of gas charge - but do any car sales places really work like that - or are they being lazy and leaving it up to you to complain if there is an issue.

Unfortunately you might be expecting too much from your AC especially if it is an auto AC system, manual AC systems do seem to be able to attempt to freeze you, where as the auto AC will control just how much "cooling effort" is available - I'm open to being wrong here, so hopefully some other owners will post to this thread so that you can get a balanced view of things.
 
Apr 14, 2019
24
1
RUM4MO, thanks for your reply. You're correct that I might be expecting too much from the AC system. I've never driven another Ibiza so I don't know how it compares. I've driven other cars, in much warmer and more humid climates, where I had no issue with AC cooling. Since the Ibiza is probably also sold in warmer markets, I'd assume the AC should be able to cool to an acceptable level. I ran the AC in both auto and manual. I ran it at full blast on LO setting (lowest it would go), cabin recirculation, and did not find the cooling sufficient.
 

dm222

Active Member
Dec 7, 2013
1,468
46
The whine is "normal" (more noticeable under aceleration) but the performance is acceptable maybe you need to recharge it.
 

Rooster

Active Member
Oct 27, 2018
1,188
326
Yorkshire
Prepare yourself for a damaged condensor? I had to replace both the Ibiza and Leon's last year due to stone damage. On the Ibiza the first signs were a lack of cold air and a whining noise when in use.
 
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