I am feeling that alfa 156 is a stupid car full of problems and issues, i regret the day i thought of owning it, I am living in a hot climate country, i turn the AC day and night,
the AC is cold but the air flow is super weak, i changed the air filters but nothing changed, i melt inside the car while the AC is running,
another friend driving 156 and told me this is a common issue with 156 that the air flow is weak,
i change the Auxiliary fan but still nothing changed,
is there is a fix for that ? can the AC air flow be like all the normal cars running on earth ?
The AC in the 156 has long been considered "weak" or underperforming. Coming from a car without AC, I find that it has a decent level of cooling - but is probably a modest performance compared to never cars.
I'd consider having the system checked and recharged if I was you. Just to ensure that it actually delivers maximum performance.
There's a temp sensor in the centre dash as well - mine was pretty filthy after 15 years, but gave it a good clean with compressed air.
The fans and air distribution is a bit rubbish on the earlier ones, I think it was much improved on the later facelift cars. It helps to close the rear vents, passenger side, top outer dash vents then have it on top vent blowingonly, when most of the air is diverted to the drivers side top and middle vents its not too bad (for the driver!).
Just to add to this I found earlier cars with AC ok for distribution. Cars without are worse despite careful adjustment of control cables.
If air quantity is low, if it is a later car with twin cabin filters, ensure air inlet under scuttle trim is not blocked.
If that doesn't cure it turn fan onto full speed and measure voltage at the fan terminals whilst it is running. If it is more than 0.25 volts lower than voltage at battery terminals, suspect an issue in electrical connections as per your previous post.
It may be good to post voltages here as this may be a symptom of what you posted before.
Air flow is fine with the fan on full - no better or worse than any other car.
The air-con capacity is also sufficient when the system is gassed properly. If you’re expecting it to be like a US car which have stupendously over powered AC, you’ll be disappointed, but it works fine for me driving in Spain.
If the fan is “weak” check the voltage at the motor as suggested above, either the resistor or the motor is knackered.
I was never impressed with the cooling ability of the AC in my 156.
It did cool, but not as much as you'd like on a hot day.
I'm sure part of the issue is the rad fans not running constantly for AC, they pulse on/off on the 156 but most cars have them running constantly.
I did plan on rigging up some extra small fans in front of the AC rad, but never got round to it.
The easiest way would be to use the output from the compressor relay to either feed into the low speed fan switched (from ECU) side or as per what I've seen so far, is instead wire it up to another relay which is wired in series or parallel with low speed fan relay, to permanently bring on low speed fan operation.
I state that as on JTS and a JTD, the low speed fan feed from engine ECU is a switched NEGATIVE. In any case it must be checked first.
Either that or as David C states, fit a stand alone fan and relay wired from the AC compressor to avoid possibility of wearing out a factory fit fan.
Alfa air con does seem to be weaker than other cars I can only assume it is due to condenser fan operation.
I drive a transit at work, have a 5 series and a 3 series and the air con in my old 159 and the G are pathetic in comparison. Alfa I need it blasting out the others I can Mitch right back to fan speed 1.
I thought about my last post and decided 156 AC is quite poor even at motorway speeds so the fan mod won't completely sort it.
I'd say 156s could all do with window tint film but I'd rather cook than the common chav black.
Do a tint the right way and in my opinion, it just looks classy. I have a factory-matched (matched to what most modern cars nowadays come out when they spec up the option privacy glass) tint on my 147 on the rear doors and back window. A very minor tint on front doors as well - You cant tell it's there, but it helps with heat a lot.
It's not the best, I find economical Japanese cars have very good A/C systems. Also, there might be problems with the motors which control the temperature, sometimes they can get stuck and result in a temperature being produced that is not the one desired.
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