I feel like I won a lottery, with my car's A/C fix... [View all]
... yesterday!
After noticing it wasn't blowing cold air a few weeks ago, during some unusually warm afternoons after work, I bought some R-134a refrigerant and a trigger-dispenser with a pressure gauge a few days ago.
I connected the gauge, but the refrigerant pressure was too high. Then I realized the A/C's compressor wasn't even engaging!
In the meantime, my elderly neighbor lady came outside and asked what I was doing. I explained it, and expressed concern about the compressor since that's an expensive repair that I can't even afford until this upcoming Summer is over.
She said that her car's A/C has slowly gotten worse over the years, and now it blows warm air too. So I hooked up my new pressure gauge to her car, and the reading was near-zero! So I added the R-134a refrigerant -- with no additives, and the appropriate refrigerant for her car too -- to her A/C instead, using an ambient temperature chart to determine the proper PSI (to avoid overfilling). Then she squealed with joy that her A/C was "ice cold" now.
Yet my car still had some kind of compressor issue.
Yesterday, I checked all of the A/C-related fuses. They were fine.
Then I bought a $9 compressor clutch relay at a nearby auto parts store, after reading that the OEM relays in old Honda Accords often went bad.
After replacing that relay (located at the under-hood fuse box) and turning on the A/C, the car sounded different! I scurried toward the compressor and shined a light on it. It was engaged now!
Checked the refrigerant pressure after the compressor was engaged, and it's about perfect!
Then I sat inside the car again, feeling very COLD AIR blow over me!
Hallelujah! Fixed with just a $9 electronics part! 
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