Pajero V46 2800 InterCooler Turbo Air-Con

My Pajero is giving me trouble. It is her air-con! It is suppose to blow out cool air but instead it blow out hot air ( the heater is not on, if fact it is not even connected ). I happen to be rather cold resistant ( since I am a big guy, beside if it get too cold I can always wear more cloths ) but I can’t stand the heat ( I am totally in-active when I get heated up. I have being on ‘heat’ lately whenever I drive my Pajero to work ). Not much choice really as it has being raining lately & part of the road is floated & so my Pajero is the only safe option as it is stand up to two feet of water!

Normally a car air-con is not cool if :-

1.the air-con gas is gone or not enough ( due to gas leakages, depend on where the leakage is the problem can be fixed inexpensively )

2.the air-con cooling fin is dirty ( so it is no longer efficient, just took out the cooling fins & clean it, not expensive but time consuming )

3.the air-con compressor is faulty ( have to buy a new compressor very expensive, in fact the most expensive component of a car air-con system )

4.the air-con control unit is faulty ( rather expensive, problem is finding parts or circuits but it is very rare to have this problem )

5.the air-con heat radiator ( located in front of the Pajero cooling radiator in the engine bay ) is blocked ( with dirt or cracked hence gas leakage, expensive as a Pagero has two air-con heat radiators one big & one small )

6.the air-con heat radiator’s fan is not working ( not too expensive a Pajero has two air-con radiator fans one big & one small, but it is time consuming to change them ) .

As the most common problem is dirty air-con cooling fins I agree to have it cleaned. A lot of work in taking apart the air-con cooling fins as my Pajero has dual air-con.

The Pajero front air-con is located just behind the glove compartment. The white box thing.

While the hind air-con is located inside the right ( driver side ) back panel.

The front air-con cooling fins inside the white air-con box. See it is very dirty with death insect stuck inside.

The hind air-con cooling fins, also very dirty, not death insect is found but got hairs ( I wander how the hairs got suck into there? ).

It is discovered that the front air-con cooling fin is leaking gas ( the second most expensive component of a car air-con system ) & because the leak is inside the cooling fin it can’t be sealed by aluminum welding. So no choice but to buy a new cooling fin. See the new & the old. Pajero air-con cooling fins ( Denso brand ) is the ‘bee hives’ type double layers with dense cooling fins. Dam expensive, cost me RM450-00 ( half of my salary gone ). And to keep the cooling fins clean & prevent insect from getting in I seal up the air-con outside air intake ( it is always advisable to close the outside air intake as insect will always end up in the cooling fin including dust & dirt ). With the new cooling fin installed the Pajero air-con's performance is now very cooling.

Inside temp is at 34C ( late afternoon, see I go to work inside an oven, arrive at office with my ‘ball’ half-cooked! How to drive & work like this ) before air-con is switch on.

Inside temp at 25C after half hour with air-con on at full blast! The temp will drop to 21C in two hours, at night it will drop to 19C! Very good performance! Money well spend ( but I have to forgo a few other ‘activities’ )!

To me a car air-con is very important part of a car. To me a car is worthless if its air-con is not functioning or not cool enough ( like a Kanari or Kancil both very nice car apart from it lousy air-con system ).

So to my dear readers, do u place a good car air-con highly when u buy a car?