Our 2009 Honda Civic has 49k miles. My wife and I have put every one of those miles on her, and she is well taken care of.

Today, my wife went out to start the car and it was dead. Not a single volt of juice. The doors were all shut, lights were all off. There should have been no real reason why the battery would have been drained to zero. I charged the battery up for a few hours, and checked it. Was at 12.8v. Put it back in the Civic, and started it up.

I left the Civic idling for a few minutes while I went inside the house. I came out, and got in -- immediately heard a hissing noise from the passenger side. The same type of noise you hear when you turn the car off and turn the AC off.

Then, the engine started to bog down, a few times it nearly died. Keep in mind the AC controls are OFF.

I turned the car off, and opened the hood. The low pressure AC lines were frozen/frosted over completely. Then the lines started hissing, and what appeared to be freon began escaping. Then somewhat violent escape, like a turbo blowoff valve venting into the air.

I did not see where the freon was escaping from, I was looking away.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. The Civic starts right up, but now it has this AC issue. Are these related?

Thanks,
Matt

 

More data:

Scangauge II pops C1555, and C1500

Any ideas?

 

Do you hear the compressor clutch snap in as soon as you connect the battery? Likely the compressor relay is stuck on. This will cause the battery to run down and also have the system cooling all the time even with the controls set for off.

 

mk - shack! That's exactly what I heard.

I pulled the AC relays (two of them?) and started the car. It did not freeze over. I put them back in, started the car, idled for 10 mins. It did not freeze over.

Likely they were stuck and pulling them jarred them loose? I'll replace them anyway, of course.

What would cause the engine to bog down at idle and die, even if it is the relay?

 

Running the A/C compressor without the condenser fans on causes abnormal pressure to build up and bog down the engine. There is a relief valve on the back of the compressor that will vent the refrigerant out if the pressure gets too high. It appears this happened to your car so you will need to replace it. Rather than trying to add some with a can, it's much better to have a shop evacuate and recharge by weight so you know the charge amount is correct.

Also the computer didn't expect the compressor to be on so it doesn't compensate the idle for the heavier load. Finally, after the battery has gone dead or been disconnected, the computer has to recalibrate itself. The idle may be uneven until you have driven some to complete the recalibration.

 

Well, that seemed to have fixed the problem. Thank much!

 

Ditch the vacuum pump for this one, see if trying to bleed without it produces a leak somewhere. It's possible to get defective new cylinders...defective in a way that when they sat in a warehouse and got rust on the inside the first time you actuate it the seal gets torn and you can't bleed it properly. Also, are you sure your throw out bearing is actually clicked into it's place? I recall it's a distinctive click and if it's misaligned it can be stuck.

 

Check distributor maybe your coil or igniters may be going bad

 

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