What causes the sputtering when I use my A/C? Can I fix this myself?

GREGMARSHALL

MEMBER
2008 CHEVROLET SILVERADO
27,400 MILES

2008 Silverado 1500, V6, 2WD, 27xxx miles
My a/c comes on with a thunk and something in the front end sputters and shakes, reminiscent of a bad plug. It is very irregular, sometimes subtle, sometimes a little more aggressive, and seems to have no kind of pattern. Everything seems fine when the engine runs with or without the fan, so long as the a/c is not engaged. There seems to be no difference in this behavior using the lowest or highest a/c settings. The air coming out is cold as it should be. I saw another fellow on the FixYa site having the same problem, but no solutions have yet been posted. Is this a popular problem? Can I fix this in my driveway? Is it likely covered by my warranty (which expires in April)?

1 Reply

HMAC300

MECHANIC
48,601 POSTS

Well you can always take itto the dealer to see if they can fix it for free. It may have soemthing to do with temp outside as different temps put different loads on an a/c system. The hottter it is the heavier the load. It might be a compressor clutch problem as well. There is an active tsb on something similar to what you are having an dthe pcm needs to be reprogrammed to fix it. Different owners complain about things similar to yours so I would check with dealer. Try to explain itand they can look at the tsb. The tsb number is 07-01-38-010A