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2013 Civic EX:

I noticed today, while at the drive-through, that the compressor was very loudly clicking on and off fairly quickly. When I got home, and looked under the hood, the compressor's pulley completely stops spinning and then comes back on. The A/C seems to be working just fine outside of that, and is staying very cool. Is there a simple fix, or is there a major problem occurring?

 
Rep Power: 517

Sounds normal to me.


Compressor is supposed to cycle on and off , that's how the system regulates the temperature inside the cooling box in the dash (evaporator) and keeps it from freezing solid.

As long as it cools ok, it's fine.

 
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Thank you, I was just concerned because I read elsewhere that it was low or high freeon levels

 
Rep Power: 517

Depending on system design (different manufacturers do things differently) either of those conditions COULD cause incorrect cycling, but either of those conditions would also be combined with a complaint of poor cooling. (Of course this is the short version, it's not always that simple when it comes to figuring out actual problems)

You said yours cools just fine, so the cycling you noticed is normal.

When the weather is mild, the system doesn't have to work real hard to cool so compressor cycle ON time can be somewhat short, but if it were blazing hot and the system has to work hard the compressor could run continuously.

If the weather is super hot the system and the interior may take a long time to get cool, it takes a long dang time to make a cars interior cool off when it's well above 190*F inside. These cars use a fairly small AC system (undersized IMO) compared to some other cars.