Vehicle: 2017 Honda CR-V EX-L with about 130k miles
Problem:
The A/C wasn't blowing cold. With the temperature set to the lowest, A/C on, and recirculate on, it would intermittently go hot-cold-hold-cold-... with no detectable pattern. It would be cold for 15 mins, and then hot for 5, and then cold for 20, and then hot for 30. After a while, it was just almost exclusively hot.
Diagnosis performed:
TLDR: Freon leak, with no definitive source.
Details:
After a while, the A/C would only blow hot, so I bought more Freon (R-1234yf), and using an A/C manifold gauge set (and vacuum pump), I refilled the system with Freon. That fixed the issue. Then after a few weeks of heavy A/C use (Texas summer), the problem started happening again. This time, with all the Freon removed, I did a vacuum test and confirmed there's a leak (I pulled a heavy vacuum on the system, and left it for about 2 hours. At that time, the vacuum had decreased by about 10 inHg). Then, I refilled the system with Freon, and added U/V dye and drove the car for about a week. Following that, I looked all around using a U/V light and yellow glasses, and have been unable to find anything conclusive. So far, I've checked:
- High and low side A/C lines under the hood, from the firewall into the condenser
- Lines from the condenser into the compressor
- Compressor, compressor clutch (which I then removed), shaft, pulley, and coil.
- A/C drain line
One suspicious thing is that on the face of the compressor coil was a decent amount of blackish oil, that under U/V light appears bluish, but not the lime green dye color that I added. Additionally, around the compressor did seem to have lots of lime green specks (U/V dye color), but it's hard to tell if that's U/V dye splatter or just dirt, because it's all around the area, and lots of it appears farther away, where U/V dye wouldn't have made it. What would be the next diagnostic step to take to determine where the leak is? I'm about at the point where I'm ready to just start replacing stuff until something fixes it, but hoping for more diagnostic help before I do that. I'm pretty new to automotive work and especially A/C work, so forgive me if I'm missing something obvious.
P.S. I took it to the dealer at the beginning of all of this, and they had a "master technician" inspect it ($200), and they couldn't find the leak, so that said the next step was to evacuate the system and recharge it with U/V dye, but they quoted $530 for that, so I'm attempting to do it myself.
Below are some pictures. Thanks for helping a noobie.
Problem:
The A/C wasn't blowing cold. With the temperature set to the lowest, A/C on, and recirculate on, it would intermittently go hot-cold-hold-cold-... with no detectable pattern. It would be cold for 15 mins, and then hot for 5, and then cold for 20, and then hot for 30. After a while, it was just almost exclusively hot.
Diagnosis performed:
TLDR: Freon leak, with no definitive source.
Details:
After a while, the A/C would only blow hot, so I bought more Freon (R-1234yf), and using an A/C manifold gauge set (and vacuum pump), I refilled the system with Freon. That fixed the issue. Then after a few weeks of heavy A/C use (Texas summer), the problem started happening again. This time, with all the Freon removed, I did a vacuum test and confirmed there's a leak (I pulled a heavy vacuum on the system, and left it for about 2 hours. At that time, the vacuum had decreased by about 10 inHg). Then, I refilled the system with Freon, and added U/V dye and drove the car for about a week. Following that, I looked all around using a U/V light and yellow glasses, and have been unable to find anything conclusive. So far, I've checked:
- High and low side A/C lines under the hood, from the firewall into the condenser
- Lines from the condenser into the compressor
- Compressor, compressor clutch (which I then removed), shaft, pulley, and coil.
- A/C drain line
One suspicious thing is that on the face of the compressor coil was a decent amount of blackish oil, that under U/V light appears bluish, but not the lime green dye color that I added. Additionally, around the compressor did seem to have lots of lime green specks (U/V dye color), but it's hard to tell if that's U/V dye splatter or just dirt, because it's all around the area, and lots of it appears farther away, where U/V dye wouldn't have made it. What would be the next diagnostic step to take to determine where the leak is? I'm about at the point where I'm ready to just start replacing stuff until something fixes it, but hoping for more diagnostic help before I do that. I'm pretty new to automotive work and especially A/C work, so forgive me if I'm missing something obvious.
P.S. I took it to the dealer at the beginning of all of this, and they had a "master technician" inspect it ($200), and they couldn't find the leak, so that said the next step was to evacuate the system and recharge it with U/V dye, but they quoted $530 for that, so I'm attempting to do it myself.
Below are some pictures. Thanks for helping a noobie.
Images (Click to enlarge)
Oct 3, 2026 at 6:37 PM