How Well Does Your 09 or 08 Air Conditioner work...

JFUSION21 · 06-30-2009, 08:04 PM

Just curious if people with 08 or 09 Escapes find their air conditioner adequate in hot weather conditions. I bought my truck in February as a winter vehicle and I haven't driven it much since March 31st when my summer car was put on the road. We vacation in Florida in July and I will be taking the Escape on the 3500 mile journey through some tough heat. Hoping the air conditioner keeps up in the hot weather. Last year I did the trip in my Ford Fusion and the air conditioner core froze up on me and plugged the air flow through the interior of the vehicle, and we suffered through some high heat for a bit until it corrected itself. Not sure what caused the Fusion problem, hopefully the Escape air conditioner is a bit more reliable and powerful, as the Escape has more interior space to cool down. The heat down south is much higher than what we see in our northern parts. We haven't had very warm weather in our area yet this summer so I haven't put it through any real test. Any opinions would be helpful. Thanks.

wptski · 07-01-2009, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JFUSION21

Just curious if people with 08 or 09 Escapes find their air conditioner adequate in hot weather conditions. I bought my truck in February as a winter vehicle and I haven't driven it much since March 31st when my summer car was put on the road. We vacation in Florida in July and I will be taking the Escape on the 3500 mile journey through some tough heat. Hoping the air conditioner keeps up in the hot weather. Last year I did the trip in my Ford Fusion and the air conditioner core froze up on me and plugged the air flow through the interior of the vehicle, and we suffered through some high heat for a bit until it corrected itself. Not sure what caused the Fusion problem, hopefully the Escape air conditioner is a bit more reliable and powerful, as the Escape has more interior space to cool down. The heat down south is much higher than what we see in our northern parts. We haven't had very warm weather in our area yet this summer so I haven't put it through any real test. Any opinions would be helpful. Thanks.

Really just used my AC for the first time last week when we had +90F temperature. I didn't use the AUTO function or set temperature, only on MAX to cool down rapid and then switched to normal. Had to drop the fan speed as it was getting too cold. Of course, it was just me all alone!

As for your Fusion. There should be a temperature sensor to keep it from freezing up. They have a hig/low freon pressure sensor and the sensor I mentioned.

johnm356 · 07-01-2009, 10:13 AM

My '08 works well enough that left alone long enough on high, and I could use it as a beer cooler.

JFUSION21 · 07-01-2009, 01:43 PM

ah that sounds reassuring, thanks for the quick replies. So it should work well by the sounds of things. Yeah I don't know what happened with our Fusion's air conditioner last year , that was strange as it only happened once in three years and never re-occurred again. Just my luck to happen on a super hot summer trip. Thanks again for the replies.

Escape Artist · 07-05-2009, 05:31 PM

I have the 09 XLT FWD I would have to say the air conditioning as far as inside coolness is excellent even find I turn it off and on because the low setting is to cold right now - have not hit really hot weather yet though.

JFUSION21 · 07-05-2009, 08:04 PM

thanks for the additional replies. Sounds like I should be fine, which is good to know. There are lots of vehicles on the market right now that have poor air conditioning capacity as the number one complaint, so it is reassuring to hear that the Escape system works well.

JHO_2009EscapeLimited · 07-22-2009, 01:39 PM

It has been in high 90's temp wise and it has been great with my 09.

JFUSION21 · 08-09-2009, 08:09 PM

thanks for all of the replies. We just returned from a long trip through the south eastern U.S. and the air conditioner performance really surprised me. I had it on the lowest fan speed the majority of the trip, and I often found myself having to mix some warmer air in the air flow. It was really cold, worked exceptionally well.

theoldwizard · 09-04-2009, 02:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JFUSION21

thanks for all of the replies. We just returned from a long trip through the south eastern U.S. and the air conditioner performance really surprised me. I had it on the lowest fan speed the majority of the trip, and I often found myself having to mix some warmer air in the air flow. It was really cold, worked exceptionally well.

A/C typically works best on the low to mid setting. On MAX, the air does not come in contact with the condenser as long and therefore does not loose as much heat.

Most folks just aren't patient enough !

Also, for best cooling, let your A/C unit "recirculate" the cabin air. Normal A/C just draws (hot/humid) outside air in and tries to cool it. All Ford vehicles have a recirculate mode. How you enable it varies from vehicle to vehicle.

wptski · 09-04-2009, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theoldwizard

A/C typically works best on the low to mid setting. On MAX, the air does not come in contact with the condenser as long and therefore does not loose as much heat.

Most folks just aren't patient enough !

Also, for best cooling, let your A/C unit "recirculate" the cabin air. Normal A/C just draws (hot/humid) outside air in and tries to cool it. All Ford vehicles have a recirculate mode. How you enable it varies from vehicle to vehicle.

The "recirculate" mode is the MAX mode for rapid cool down unless you mean something else by MAX.