Air Conditioning not working

[tenorphoto]

My Air con has never really worked on my iV60 Enyaq. I got the car in late November 2021 so the air con was not used hence I did not notice if it was working or not, but in May of 2022 was when I first noticed it only blew ambient temperature air not cooled air. I took it back the the dealership and they had it for two days only to then tell me that they could not fix it because it was a "level 3" problem and they were only qualified to level 2! Hence I needed to take it to a Level 3 dealership. There is only one of those in London apparently and that is Alan Day Skoda on the A406. It took me 7 weeks to get an appointment to have it seen to! Meanwhile we went on our summer holiday and sweltered all the way around Cornwall with no air con. At the appointment at Alan Day they took the car in and I had a loan car for 3 days in case the repair took a while. I drove home, about 20 minutes around the A406. Alan Day also had to attend to some "updates". Later that afternoon I got a call to come collect the car as it had been sorted. When I went to get the car I asked what the problem was and they told me that the dealer who had provided me the car from new had not "activated" all the features which are turned off while the vehicle is in transit. As the Enyaq was still a very new car then, they said many dealers were not yet fully trained in how to properly "activate" the full features of the car. In any case, the air con was working BUT I had to go back to have the Version 3 update and some other recall item sorted out. The air con worked for a while then the car went back for the update and as the weather had turned cold by then I had no cause to use the air con after the update. Then several weeks ago (24/5/2023) I put the air con on and it was again only blowing ambient temperature air. Thinking I may have got one of the vast array of options in the infotainment and settings screens wrong I sat for hours trying every button, tab and knob I could find but to no avail. So I drove to Alan Day Skoda on the off chance that their guy could show me where I was going wrong. He sat with me in the car and we both tried all the options. He announced, I better put on the diagnostic machine. He did so and it flagged a system fault or failure. BUT he did not have time to sort it as he was up to his ears dealing with the cars booked in for attention. I would have to book it in and come back. The first available appointment is 7th AUGUST 2023, over 10 weeks later. So once again I am spending the whole of the summer with no air con.
I have a heat pump on the car and wondered whether this is a problem as these cars with heat pumps have a different gas in the air con compressor. Has anyone had any issues like this?

[Deasea]

This has been discussed on the forum before - try searching under climatronic..

My iv80 with heat pump had these symptoms from the day I picked it up into last year. In my case the refrigerant had leaked away and therefore the 'heat pump' was not able to work correctly resulting in symptoms that you describe. Look also at Rich R excellent explanation of how the heat pump works and associated information. In order to check the level of refrigerant in your system you will need to find a dealership that has the specialist machine required to perform this function, which is also used to diagnose where the leak is. If this is the case on yours then this machine is used to refill and check the system once the leak has been repaired. Because of the high pressures involved it is virtually impossible to check without this machine .

I don't know where you are but I believe that Winchester Motor Company in Winchester, Hampshire may now have one of these machines.

Skoda were most definitely aware of my case and I would hope would be able to therefore help with yours. I my case the leak was in one of the filler 'tails' if I recall correctly.

Best of luck.

[RichR]

As above - there is no separate aircon compressor as such, the heat pump system can work to cool or heat the cabin using just the one compressor (and a variety of heat exchangers, expansion valves and diverter valves). But the very high pressure CO2 that's used as the working fluid does mean different equipment to simple CFC/HFC based aircon. It's far from uncommon though, CO2 systems have been used in many makes of cars for several years. However the way franchised dealerships work in the UK (remember that Skoda don't own any, they're just private retail outlets) mean that some get away with the bare minimum of facilities and training to meet their franchise obligations. However there should be other garages in your area who are equipped to deal with the system.

[C2atb]

Again dealers blaming software. I e had a few occasions where I’ve selected low and nothing has blown out for a while and blowers non existent. Usually the next trip I’ve got in car and been ok . One thing I have noticed is that when car is set to cool / heat on the app or activate when unlocked is that I can’t change it when actually driving . Might be worth turning off all schedules and activate when unlocking

[tenorphoto]

Hi there folks, thanks for your replies. The update is that the car was with the service at the Level 3 equipped and trained dealership from 7th August for 2 weeks during which time they replaced the compressor and that did not sort the issue. They are now awaiting some sort of "sensor switch" on back order and I am booked in for 30/8 to see if that gets the situation sorted! To be honest I am pretty fed up with the whole situation. This will be the 6th visit to the service centre on the air con issue since I got the car. A £42K car which has had an issue of the air con not working from new has dragged on for over 20 months because of delays in getting an appointment at the Level 3 service centre, then delays on replacement parts and the sort of trial and error process of trying to determine what is actually wrong so they can sort things out. Not to mention the recall for updates on infotainment units, new puddle lights, a wireless charger pad that only works intermittently, the memory seat position function not working on the passenger seat, the ACC failing to activate once the steering wheel heater has been used, the chrome finish on the steering wheel peeling off...and so the list continues.
The dealers answer to all this: Let's wait and see if the new sensor fixes the issue. FFS how many chances do they get to make a £42K car work properly??