Faulty A/C? or Just overheating?
 

So the past few days I've been driving outside quite a bit with the A/C on as its been very hot lately. All of a sudden I notice hot air coming out of the vents instead of the cold A/C air. I turn off the A/C and after a few seconds, turn it back on and the air becomes cold again. This happened a few times yesterday and the day before. Now today, as I'm driving along, the air becomes hot once again, and I do the same thing as before - turn off the A/C, wait a while and turn it back on - but the air stays hot. I turn it off and on a few more times with no difference in results. At first I thought the engine compartment might be overheating but when I looked at the engine temperature, it was where it always is.

I then park my car in the shade and cooled it off for approximately 10 minutes, then started up the car again. The A/C still doesn't work and the air's still hot. I give up and resort to opening the windows; go out for lunch, and on my drive back from lunch i try the A/C again, still doesn't work. Another 10 minutes, I decide to give it one last try, and the air finally becomes cold again. Haven't experienced any more problems with it in the afternoon after that.

Has anyone else experienced problems with their A/C? Is it overheating? Or simply beginning to break down?

From experience with other cars AC issues, your compressor may be on its way out or you may be low on refrigerant/Freon (or whatever chemical spec is used these days...). If your compressor cannot convert from gas to liquid, you may not be able to get any cold air production. Same goes for the lack of freon, if you don't have enough you won't be doing much cooling.

Just some thoughts, at least it broke when the weather is starting to clear back up into the "comfortable for humans" range.

The circuit board for the temperature control knob is failing. Common problem on the RX-8, search the tech forum for info.

^^^

Easy way to find out if the circuit board is the problem. Hold the POWER button on your stereo and press in the SCAN up button. The display ribbon should read AC with a number from 0 to 16. When your temperature knob is at its coldest the display should read 0, and when its at its warmest it should read 16. When you move the knob from cold to warm it should move up from 0 to 16. If yours is stuck at 16 then you have to fix the panel. This is somewhat easy if you have taken your radio out. There are seveal connectors on the back that have broken and need to be sodered back on (if that is truly the problem you are having). Mine is the opposite, I can't get any heat. I'm just too lazy to fix it right now but I can do it easily enough as I've had my stereo out 4 times.

I'm had the hot air issue for a brief moment during my trip home on Sunday from MotM....but it return back to cool air after like 10 secs..weird...
________
Ipad accessories

If it is low on coolant ... don't run it as it is not good for the compressor. Check the knob fix to prove or eliminate that first. If it is not the knob, then take it in before the compressor goes on you!

There are some known issues with A/C I heard about. I experienced low amount of COOL at a stoplight...They put new coolant in, told me run on hot days with RE-CIRCULATE instead of OUTSIDE AIR and if that did not fix it, there are some other things they replace to fix the problem if your compressor is not the problem. Most are covered on Warranty. In winter I had to replace the system that has the control knobs for heat ,as that was a warranty noted problem they have had. Took an hour...they dropped in a whole radio/CD and new controls because the CD player kept ejecting and would not function.

Well... I found out that one of the problem(s) is the A/C knob... gotta fix it once I have time ~_~

Hopefully that's all that's broken... *crosses fingers*

Thanks for the help and advice !

@PaQuiN I have this same issue and confirmed it by monitoring the temp level with your trick (thanks loads!!!)

Now I just need to figure out how to get back there to re-solder it!!! sounds like a fun weekend project... =)

Thank you sir. Guess I should tweak my searching skills :crazy:
Much obliged.