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      07-09-2022, 06:06 AM   #1
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M140i air conditioning issue... unsure on what to do

Hello everyone,

Some days ago I noticed my air conditioning was not only weak but actually almost blowing hot air inside (perfect timing as obviously now it's the season for it)... so I took it in for an inspection to a new BMW repair place here in Berlin (1st time there) and they said the issue is with the water pump and some kind of sensor/PCB handling the temperature management and safety levels. Please forgive me if I am not being too specific with it but neither was the person telling me, there.

Total repair costs, around 2000 Euros.
Now, this has obviously me thinking, as it's an important part of the car (nobody likes to die from heat, in it) but it's also.. quite an expensive repair.

Has anyone ever had anything similar? Am I overly suspicious and should just go for the repairs? I was thinking to take it to another BMW place and have it inspected again just for a different opinion (hopefully BMW is not a hive-mind system that will know to repeat the previous diagnosis just to fool me ).

Since this is not 'the engine' or something unique to the car, does it make more sense to take it to 'some repair shop', more trusted or just less generic like a BMW dealer?

As you can read from this, yes: I am not an expert in car repairs, dealerships and 'being an alpha male in not getting fooled'. I apologize in advance if this seems just an amateur post, but this is where I am at.

I am afraid - for reasons I won't go into, now as they are redundant - I am being fooled into a repair that is more expensive than it needs to be. I just heard mixed opinions about 'you should never take it to BMW as they'll rip you off' and 'you should always take it to BMW because they're the ones who know'. So I am thinking this is now also taking a toll.

This said, I love my m140i and I think this was the best car I've ever had, every moment driving it has been really enjoyable and I am super happy.

Thanks for your precious time and help,



ADDITIONAL DETAILS (in case you have time for a relaxed read):
The air condition "does work", in the sense that all lights turn up and work as expected. The air feels cool and stayed cool, but when PRETTY hot (>30C at least, even 35C and higher) I felt literally warm air coming from the vents. No feeling of fresh air conditioning dry air (you know what I mean).

So I took the car to the BMW dealer and they did the regular checks (it was time for a TÜV update) and also said they had refilled the gas for the A/C.

I turn it on, drive back home and sure enough after 5 minutes nothing works, same issue (same hot day).

So I take the car back to them and say "sorry, this is still not working". They make me leave the car, and the next day they call me with the super fast talk and put me on the hysterical side of "we ordered it, it's 2K EUR OK? OK?" which I then canceled.

When I picked the car up and drove with my wife 3 hours the next day, the A/C worked fine. Maybe as a placebo effect it felt a tad on the light side? But definitely worked and no warm air was coming through. The engine was fairly hot (no speed limits in some areas so I had some fun, too) and the day was still around 25-30. But it worked.

So as you understand, I became even more suspicious. It is quite probable that it's a leak, somewhere. And your suggestion makes a lot of sense, to take it to some air con specialist but probably, definitely not a BMW place.

Now, one thing I remembered, which might be totally unrelated, is that one day, way before the problem started, I did a short 30-50 feet backwards in reverse, at a gas station, to reach for a parking slot. When I finally parked, I noticed A LOT OF white smoke, dense and slow, coming from the bonnet. The car was -perfect- and had zero issues before or after that. It kinda felt to me that could have been the A/C cooling gas?

Anyway, since that episode it's now - supposedly - been refilled, although that will obviously end up to waste in case there is a leakage somewhere.

The explanation of the BMW place was super complicated, something along the line of: "the water pump does not work, no.. it does work but there is a sensor that is supposed to tell it when it's dangerously too hot to operate, so this sensor is now broken and reports wrong stuff, we need to change the sensor board and the water pump, and it's gonna be 2K". I don't mean to call people dishonest as a hobby, I don't enjoy it, but it did smell fishy.

I still need to find a good reference point here near Berlin for some tuning things etc. but I have failed to look around a bit.

Anyway, thanks for the help for now and I was able to elaborate a bit on more info and details! I'll keep an eye on the thread and update it when I have news!

Last edited by Reezo; 07-09-2022 at 06:10 PM..
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      07-09-2022, 09:32 AM   #2
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Hello,

I am not an expert either, but AFAIK the most typical reason for air cooling failure is a leak in the system. So what they told you does look doubtful ("water pump" - engine cooling, right?) and I would vote for taking the car to another place to make sure it's not bullshit.

Cabin air cooling is not a critical function, you can drive without it. I didn't have it in my first car and never even opened the windows (tried to keep the cabin clean) - just used the ventilation and it was tolerable in summer (with heat-protection glass all around?). Well, my second car tended to overheat and I had to watch the engine temperature and turn the AC off to save the engine... This can be the issue they suggest, by the way! The diagnostics can be not too bad if they read computer errors and those suggested what they told you.

If the AC issue is engine cooling related, the AC should still work when the engine is not hot (idling after you've just started it, for example). Also, check the engine coolant level. You can watch the engine temperature using the system menu (a video, more available).

Last edited by No one; 07-09-2022 at 10:03 AM.. Reason: Added some considerations.
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      07-09-2022, 12:54 PM   #3
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I bought a 2014 116i with non working air con. When the gas pressure is low, the compressor won't run.

I bought a regassing kit from ebay for £75 (inlcludes lubricant and leak stopper) and followed the instructions - easy to follow and this fixed it.

But, there must be a leak because the pressure slowly drops so the air con becomes less and less effective. It's still working after a month but less well and eventually the compressor will not activate.

Finding the leak won't be easy.

NO DON'T LET A BMW DEALER ANYWHERE NEAR IT.

Take it to an air con specialist if you don't want to regas it yourself.

I bought a BMW compatible fault code reader (a BM500 off Amazon) and this told me the compressor was disabled due to low gas pressure. No fault codes for the engine.
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      07-09-2022, 06:08 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by No one View Post
Hello,

I am not an expert either, but AFAIK the most typical reason for air cooling failure is a leak in the system. So what they told you does look doubtful ("water pump" - engine cooling, right?) and I would vote for taking the car to another place to make sure it's not bullshit.

Cabin air cooling is not a critical function, you can drive without it. I didn't have it in my first car and never even opened the windows (tried to keep the cabin clean) - just used the ventilation and it was tolerable in summer (with heat-protection glass all around?). Well, my second car tended to overheat and I had to watch the engine temperature and turn the AC off to save the engine... This can be the issue they suggest, by the way! The diagnostics can be not too bad if they read computer errors and those suggested what they told you.

If the AC issue is engine cooling related, the AC should still work when the engine is not hot (idling after you've just started it, for example). Also, check the engine coolant level. You can watch the engine temperature using the system menu (a video, more available).
First off, thanks for your help. I guarantee you this is helping me tremendously, also to regain some kind of perspective as I work in Germany but I am not a native German speaker although I am pretty OK at it. Nobody here speaks English (at least that I could find, so far) and I can smell a mile away (expat attitude, I guess) when the chit chat becomes fast, obfuscated, randomic, dialectical etc. - this, coupled with the explanation for the issue and the "I already ordered the parts, I already ordered the parts! It's gonna be 2,000 EUR, OK?" smelled very fishy. I instantly told them I did not agree with that and that I would think about it, and they had to abide by my decision.

I wrote the above just to give you some perspective that this kind of help is really a fresh breath of air in this situation. I know, I might be excessively suspicious etc. but I have good reasons to be. Also because of the symptoms, which I'll elaborate on:

The air condition "does work", in the sense that all lights turn up and work as expected. The air feels cool and stayed cool, but when PRETTY hot (>30C at least, even 35C and higher) I felt literally warm air coming from the vents. No feeling of fresh air conditioning dry air (you know what I mean).

So I took the car to the BMW dealer and they did the regular checks (it was time for a TÜV update) and also said they had refilled the gas for the A/C.

I turn it on, drive back home and sure enough after 5 minutes nothing works, same issue (same hot day).

So I take the car back to them and say "sorry, this is still not working". They make me leave the car, and the next day they call me with the super fast talk and put me on the hysterical side of "we ordered it, it's 2K EUR OK? OK?" which I then canceled.

When I picked the car up and drove with my wife 3 hours the next day, the A/C worked fine. Maybe as a placebo effect it felt a tad on the light side? But definitely worked and no warm air was coming through. The engine was fairly hot (no speed limits in some areas so I had some fun, too) and the day was still around 25-30. But it worked.

So as you understand, I became even more suspicious. It is quite probable that it's a leak, somewhere. And your suggestion makes a lot of sense, to take it to some air con specialist but probably, definitely not a BMW place.

Now, one thing I remembered, which might be totally unrelated, is that one day, way before the problem started, I did a short 30-50 feet backwards in reverse, at a gas station, to reach for a parking slot. When I finally parked, I noticed A LOT OF white smoke, dense and slow, coming from the bonnet. The car was -perfect- and had zero issues before or after that. It kinda felt to me that could have been the A/C cooling gas?

Anyway, since that episode it's now - supposedly - been refilled, although that will obviously end up to waste in case there is a leakage somewhere.

The explanation of the BMW place was super complicated, something along the line of: "the water pump does not work, no.. it does work but there is a sensor that is supposed to tell it when it's dangerously too hot to operate, so this sensor is now broken and reports wrong stuff, we need to change the sensor board and the water pump, and it's gonna be 2K". I don't mean to call people dishonest as a hobby, I don't enjoy it, but it did smell fishy.

I still need to find a good reference point here near Berlin for some tuning things etc. but I have failed to look around a bit.

Anyway, thanks for the help for now and I was able to elaborate a bit on more info and details! I'll keep an eye on the thread and update it when I have news!
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      07-09-2022, 06:16 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IJO View Post
I bought a 2014 116i with non working air con. When the gas pressure is low, the compressor won't run.

I bought a regassing kit from ebay for £75 (inlcludes lubricant and leak stopper) and followed the instructions - easy to follow and this fixed it.

But, there must be a leak because the pressure slowly drops so the air con becomes less and less effective. It's still working after a month but less well and eventually the compressor will not activate.

Finding the leak won't be easy.

NO DON'T LET A BMW DEALER ANYWHERE NEAR IT.

Take it to an air con specialist if you don't want to regas it yourself.

I bought a BMW compatible fault code reader (a BM500 off Amazon) and this told me the compressor was disabled due to low gas pressure. No fault codes for the engine.
It makes sense. That's somehow close to what I experience. After a 'smoke from the bonnet' experience (with no issues on the car whatsoever.. so I suspected the gas leaked completely) I took it to a regular check and also reminded them the A/C was basically nonexistent. They refilled it, I drive it back home.. A/C does not work again. So I tell them and take the car in again. The next day they say everything's basically broken (water pump+sensor PCB whatever..) and it's gonna be 2,000 in repairs. The way they said it and the fact that they had ordered it all already and I was to pay that anyway.. made it suspicious. It's not the first time I get this kind of treatment so I immediately cancelled their order (I never requested it or agreed upon it) and they were OK with it, too cool even. I parted ways.

Since then, curiously, the A/C does work although I have not been in a case where outside temperature was >30C. It could be that it does not work when things are super hot, but I have to try it (weather's been so-so these days).

Anyway, I really need to find a trustworthy place near Berlin or Brandenburg to use as a reference for my car. I don't know how to fix things myself, so I need someone I can trust. It has not been easy for sure.

I am sure an air con specialist can at least give me a second opinion on it. The issue I have seems a lot like yours or at least in the ballpark. And a leak sounds more realistic to me as ZERO fault codes appear, the car passed every check etc. etc.

Many thanks for your help and time, I appreciate it!
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      07-09-2022, 09:46 PM   #6
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Refilling AC before at least one leak is found and fixed is an apparent waste! Make sure your AC specialist provides a warranty: it's quite likely you'll have to return.

Blowing hot air instead of cold. An "old school" trick to release the heat burden on the overheating engine is to turn the cabin heater on. This may be the next step (after disabling the air cooler) the computer can take as well. But there must be errors/warnings logged, of course! If none it must be not the case.

Replacing a pump when they aren't sure it's faulty (it can be the controlling sensor instead) looks an apparent bullshit.

Going fast doesn't necessarily mean the engine is hot: it's being cooled with the oncoming air. Just make sure you aren't revving high (constantly). It's quite more likely to get the engine overheated in a traffic jam. In frosty weather you might need to go slower to keep the temperature up (and/or close the holes on the front end of the car), by the way.

The "Eco Pro" driving mode should be handy to keep the engine temperature down.
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      07-10-2022, 02:55 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Reezo View Post
It makes sense. That's somehow close to what I experience. After a 'smoke from the bonnet' experience (with no issues on the car whatsoever.. so I suspected the gas leaked completely) I took it to a regular check and also reminded them the A/C was basically nonexistent. They refilled it, I drive it back home.. A/C does not work again. So I tell them and take the car in again. The next day they say everything's basically broken (water pump+sensor PCB whatever..) and it's gonna be 2,000 in repairs. The way they said it and the fact that they had ordered it all already and I was to pay that anyway.. made it suspicious. It's not the first time I get this kind of treatment so I immediately cancelled their order (I never requested it or agreed upon it) and they were OK with it, too cool even. I parted ways.

Since then, curiously, the A/C does work although I have not been in a case where outside temperature was >30C. It could be that it does not work when things are super hot, but I have to try it (weather's been so-so these days).

Anyway, I really need to find a trustworthy place near Berlin or Brandenburg to use as a reference for my car. I don't know how to fix things myself, so I need someone I can trust. It has not been easy for sure.

I am sure an air con specialist can at least give me a second opinion on it. The issue I have seems a lot like yours or at least in the ballpark. And a leak sounds more realistic to me as ZERO fault codes appear, the car passed every check etc. etc.

Many thanks for your help and time, I appreciate it!
I've never heard of a faulty engine cooling system (alleged faulty water pump) affecting the air con. This has nothing to do with the engine other than the compressor is engine driven.

Had the engine been overheating there would have been fault codes and the yellow alert on the dash would be on so you could check the reason on the iDrive screen.
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      07-10-2022, 04:16 AM   #8
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You said it doesn't blow cold air when its 30+ degrees outside? What temperature did you set on the climate control system?
Had the same thing when I set the climate control to like 18 degrees while it was 34 degrees outside. It did blow warm air until I set the climate control to like 22 degrees when it became cold again.
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      07-10-2022, 07:02 AM   #9
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You said it doesn't blow cold air when its 30+ degrees outside? What temperature did you set on the climate control system?
Had the same thing when I set the climate control to like 18 degrees while it was 34 degrees outside. It did blow warm air until I set the climate control to like 22 degrees when it became cold again.

This is interesting, thanks for writing!

When we noticed the A/C wasn't working as expected, my wife put it on MAX A/C and 18C as well and it did blew warm air, as you reported. She used this (and I did as well) as a way to reinforce "wow, this is really is not working!" because we expected colder, not warmer air to come out of the ducts.

This happened twice both when we first experienced the issue, and when we drove away from the car after its first check. Both times we used the 'lowest temp' as a way to assess whether the A/C was really working.. which seems to produce the same result you said.

I'll need to check by putting the A/C to something around 22C or even a tad higher, and see what it does. I know the last time we drove for 3 hours, outside temp was around 26C-29C and we set the A/C to 20-22 and it was working, as we kept looking at each other and I kept making the sign "shush, don't say anything, don't jinx it" aha

...So what you are writing makes even more sense now. Interesting. Is this related to the power/heat generation of the 3-liter engine or something in particular that is a 'feature' and not a 'bug'?

Thanks again for your precious help,
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      07-10-2022, 07:03 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IJO View Post
I've never heard of a faulty engine cooling system (alleged faulty water pump) affecting the air con. This has nothing to do with the engine other than the compressor is engine driven.

Had the engine been overheating there would have been fault codes and the yellow alert on the dash would be on so you could check the reason on the iDrive screen.

I totally agree. The car has been running perfectly and is as fun to drive as the first day I hopped in. This is why - even if I am usually a bit suspicious of everything - I called it out as very fishy.
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      07-12-2022, 05:13 PM   #11
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Quote:
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This is interesting, thanks for writing!

When we noticed the A/C wasn't working as expected, my wife put it on MAX A/C and 18C as well and it did blew warm air, as you reported. She used this (and I did as well) as a way to reinforce "wow, this is really is not working!" because we expected colder, not warmer air to come out of the ducts.

This happened twice both when we first experienced the issue, and when we drove away from the car after its first check. Both times we used the 'lowest temp' as a way to assess whether the A/C was really working.. which seems to produce the same result you said.

I'll need to check by putting the A/C to something around 22C or even a tad higher, and see what it does. I know the last time we drove for 3 hours, outside temp was around 26C-29C and we set the A/C to 20-22 and it was working, as we kept looking at each other and I kept making the sign "shush, don't say anything, don't jinx it" aha

...So what you are writing makes even more sense now. Interesting. Is this related to the power/heat generation of the 3-liter engine or something in particular that is a 'feature' and not a 'bug'?

Thanks again for your precious help,
I'm not a mechanic or something like that, but I think the A/C can just cool down the temperature by a certain amount of degrees. Like from 34 to 24 degrees or 30 to 20 degrees etc. Something like that.
Might have to do with something that protects the A/C system from damaging itself by freezing some of the components and end up not working at all.
After all, my A/C will get very cold when I set the temperature right so I'm not worried about any malfunction of the A/C system.
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      07-13-2022, 06:43 AM   #12
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I'm not a mechanic or something like that, but I think the A/C can just cool down the temperature by a certain amount of degrees. Like from 34 to 24 degrees or 30 to 20 degrees etc. Something like that.
Might have to do with something that protects the A/C system from damaging itself by freezing some of the components and end up not working at all.
After all, my A/C will get very cold when I set the temperature right so I'm not worried about any malfunction of the A/C system.
I totally agree. And even if something is wrong with the sensor (which could however throw the whole A/C effectiveness out of the question) it still won't be what they said.

I'll do more tests, eventually probably take it to a third-party and have it checked. No fault codes in the meantime, no issues, I am definitely not blindly paying 2,000 EUR for that. And let's just put aside what would happen trust-wise if I were to read the reviews on their Google business page...
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      07-22-2022, 05:40 PM   #13
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Did you experience any issues in the last days? I did as it was 39 degrees outside and my A/C would not cool at all.
My garage will do a A/C service on my car soon but I did check my A/C system with an OBD scanner and I got an issue considering one of the temperature sensors. It think it has to do with the inside temperature sensor.
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      08-01-2022, 05:33 PM   #14
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Did you experience any issues in the last days? I did as it was 39 degrees outside and my A/C would not cool at all.
My garage will do a A/C service on my car soon but I did check my A/C system with an OBD scanner and I got an issue considering one of the temperature sensors. It think it has to do with the inside temperature sensor.
Hi Algon,

Sorry for the late reply, I missed the notification about it. I did not drive much as I was on holiday without my car. I'll report back.

On the topic of checking for issues: I do have an OBD-2 to ENET and a Bluetooth version but I didn't know you could check your own issues. Is it something I could theoretically do, provided the software and the skills to do it? This might help us cross-reference any time of error we get.

Best,
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      08-03-2022, 11:55 AM   #15
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Hi Reezo,

Which ecu's you can check depends on your software (or app on iPhone for example).
In my case, I used an iCarsoft BMM v2.0 that is able to read the A/C system and I got an error: 8011B5.

I did however take of the A/C control unit a while ago for a retrofit. Might have to do something with that.

My car will have an A/C service tomorrow so I'm wondering how much gas was left in the system, as this can also tell a lot

Cheers
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      08-03-2022, 04:31 PM   #16
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Hi Reezo,

Which ecu's you can check depends on your software (or app on iPhone for example).
In my case, I used an iCarsoft BMM v2.0 that is able to read the A/C system and I got an error: 8011B5.

I did however take of the A/C control unit a while ago for a retrofit. Might have to do something with that.

My car will have an A/C service tomorrow so I'm wondering how much gas was left in the system, as this can also tell a lot

Cheers
Makes perfect sense. Thanks for explaining it. I am really respectful of anyone's knowledge and sometimes overthinking the fact that I am really, really a rookie in all this. So thanks!

I have a (copy paste from article name in my order):

- Veepeak Bluetooth (ab 4.0, BLE) OBD 2 Auto Diagnose Scanner Tool, Android and iOS compatible

which I use with Bimmercode on my Android phone and I've only used it for basic stuff like simple tweaks that are - hopefully - harmless (HUD icons etc.)

Then I also have a (copy-paste, again):

- NiceCheck ENET OBD Cable OBDII ESYS F-Serie Ethernet OBD ENET RJ45 Cable

That I bought with the idea one day to let a proper tuner connect to my car and do proper chiptuning to it. A lot has happened in my life and I was unfortunately unable to do that. With all that's going on in the world I started feeling guilty to do something as 'useless' as tuning my car, I know this might sound stupid but I kinda lost momentum on doing it.

More importantly: here in Berlin, I really know NO 'tuner garage team' that I can (sorry, no offense trust enough to do some chiptuning (but I am digressing).

Do you think either of the two is going to let me do some proper diagnostics? I'd be happy to tell you if anything pops up on my car.

Thanks again and fingers crossed on the future
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      08-05-2022, 05:06 PM   #17
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Both of them could do proper diagnostics, but only in combination with the right software as the Veepeak adapter or Enet cable are just tools to establish a connection between the car and your phone or laptop.

Also, a proper tuner wouldn't ask a client to bring their own Enet cable ha-ha!

On-topic: my car seemed to have about 10% more refrigerant in the A/C system than needed. I think too much refrigerant will cause too much pressure which will turn of the entire A/C system. Will see how it will do in the near future.

Cheers
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      08-05-2022, 05:35 PM   #18
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Both of them could do proper diagnostics, but only in combination with the right software as the Veepeak adapter or Enet cable are just tools to establish a connection between the car and your phone or laptop.

Also, a proper tuner wouldn't ask a client to bring their own Enet cable ha-ha!

On-topic: my car seemed to have about 10% more refrigerant in the A/C system than needed. I think too much refrigerant will cause too much pressure which will turn of the entire A/C system. Will see how it will do in the near future.

Cheers
That's great, at least the tools are there. I bought Bimmercode some time ago but if there's some more apps that are recommended, I'd gladly invest in buying so I can read MY OWN diagnostics (capisc').

I bought the ENET connector because the tuner I trusted - that some friends/colleagues have used - is based in The Netherlands and they told me they could do it remotely if I had such a tool. I agree I wouldn't trust a tuner who didn't have a 15 EUR tool to be charged 750 EUR (that's the price for chiptuning somewhere in Berlin and Hamburg, I have real quotes.. sheesh).

Very interesting info on the 'too much refrigerant'. I'll keep that in mind, as well! I assume they did remove it and now you'll be testing it in the next days.

As usual, as soon as anyone has info, we drop them here Thanks again!
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      08-06-2022, 04:53 PM   #19
Algon
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Bimmercode is awesome, did quite some coding myself. Personally I am really happy with my iCarsoft tool!

As the tuner will tune your car remotely I understand why you have the Enet cable. It is awesome that remote coding/tuning is possible these days. Also, 750 euro is a lot for a proper tune, somewhere around 550 euro is more than enough in my opinion.

Of course, they filled my A/C system with the correct amount of refrigerant now. As the issue only occured around 38 degrees Celsius, it might a take a while (luckily) to see what happens now. Will keep you updated!
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      08-27-2022, 12:18 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Algon View Post
Bimmercode is awesome, did quite some coding myself. Personally I am really happy with my iCarsoft tool!

As the tuner will tune your car remotely I understand why you have the Enet cable. It is awesome that remote coding/tuning is possible these days. Also, 750 euro is a lot for a proper tune, somewhere around 550 euro is more than enough in my opinion.

Of course, they filled my A/C system with the correct amount of refrigerant now. As the issue only occured around 38 degrees Celsius, it might a take a while (luckily) to see what happens now. Will keep you updated!

I am still have the same issues and during the latest tests, the AC is just really not doing anything but pushing average air (not too warm) in the car.

I am thinking the whole thing might be completely fubar and needs the replacing they had suggested, but considering the times we are in and my latest developments in life, I cannot put this 2,000 bucks into effect, I just cannot (I wish things were different).

So it will have to wait, it's not that important. If I find a way to at least have it checked and assessed (and eventually confirmed) by a proper garage here in Berlin, I will.. but honestly so far my search has found only places that are a bit.. let's say 'off' in their requests and approach...
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      08-27-2022, 02:31 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Reezo View Post
considering the times we are in
Times when not everyone has the top version of the car. Also, there were times when cars (well, most of them?) didn't have the air cooling function.
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      10-16-2022, 07:53 PM   #22
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Hey mate,

Unsure if you have had this fixed or not but I thought I might share my experience with my M140i Air Conditioning not working, similar to how you described.

I noticed my AC not blowing very cold air one Summer day (+30C outside air).
Next day not working at all.

Day after that working a little bit, as it was cool but not cold with the AC set to minimum temperature.

I got a local Air Condition guy to check the gas as I was thought I might have a refrigerant leak. He checked and it refrigerant gas levels/pressures were ok.
Next, with the test equipment still attached, we started the engine to check what the pressures in the AC lines were doing when the motor was running and AC compressor spinning. We noticed the pressure climbing and climbing until the AC compressor eventually cut out to save itself from over pressurizing. This is an indication that the refrigerant gas in not being cooled effectively. This is when the AC guy said I’d need to go to BMW as he said it was too complicated of a system for him to fix. I decided to look deeper and see what I could find out before going to BMW.

The M140i Air Conditioning is not like conventional Air Conditioning systems. They use coolant and a small electric water pump to cool the refrigerant gas so the AC system can work as required. Sometimes this is called the Low Temp cooling system. However, this coolant and water pump are not the same system as the one used to keep the engine cool, and do not interact with each other.

It is a separate circuit, which also is linked to the Air-To-Water turbo intercooler that lives in the intake manifold. Meaning, if there are issues with this cooling circuit, the air intake temperatures for the motor are also affected. Likely the motor will be running a little down on power as it will have to compensate for the higher air intake temperature.

I checked for any fault codes using my BM3 app and the only error code was relating to a ‘Coolant Pump Run Dry’ error…

Under you bonnet you have two coolant caps on the right hand side. Larger one for engine coolant, smaller one for the Low Temp cooling system. I checked the coolant level of the Low Temp cooling system, and I found mine to look completely empty. Yours may be the same. I added about 1-1.5L of coolant to that reservoir and carried out a simple system bleed with the cap still off.

Great how to guide:
.

Doing this got the AC to work again. I suspect that if there is an issue with your Low Temp cooling system water pump, you will find out doing this test as you wont hear the sound of the water pump running or see coolant movement/bubbles in the reservoir.

Now my attention turned to why it was low on coolant. Turns out the radiator for this Low Temp circuit is right at the front of the car with little to no protection. At some point while driving, a rock had hit this radiator, and a very small leak had started. So small that it only shows up when the system gets hot and under pressure. Once I found this, I drained the Low Temp coolant system, removed the bumper to access the radiator and managed to patch the tiny hole with some metal putty. Refitted everything and refilled the Low Temp cooling system, then carried out the bleed procedure a few times until the level in the reservoir stabilized. It’s been almost 12 months now, and this fix has held up.


In summary: AC gas was overheating and shutting the AC compressor down due to a cooling system leak on the Low Temp cooling circuit, causing the AC to not work effectively 99% of the time.


I hope this gives you a few things you can check yourself, and you can fix it up easy enough like I did.
Good Luck!

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