Back in 2005, before I bought my Vespa LX125 I was in my Jeep full-time. It took me over 60 minutes each morning to get in to work and 45 to get home at night. it was, how you say… Le Suck? On top of that, the A/C crapped out!

I took it in to GT Automotive and they topped up the freon (or whatever it’s called now) and put some dye in it so they could see over time if there was a leak in the system. They also replaced a relay that was burned out. That relay was the cause of the warm air. The compressor was still working and spinning, but this relay was preventing the air from blowing cold. They told me that the compressor was drawing more current than it should, and that’s what caused the relay to blow.

Less than 24 hours later, I stopped at Foster’s on my way home from work with that sweet, sweet luscious air conditioning blowing cold on my knees. When I came out of Foster’s and started back up… it was warm and stayed warm. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

At that point, I decided I wasn’t going to keep dropping $65 on parts & labor to replace this relay over and over and that it must be the compressor. I waited, thinking that the compressor would be an expensive repair. Then I switched to the Vespa and the Jeep became secondary transportation at nights and on weekends, when it wasn’t so hot or I wasn’t wearing “business casual”.

Of course, last summer I was hit by that jackass in the roundabout and totaled my Vespa which put me back into the Jeep temporarily as my primary and as it turned out permanently. Still, it was fall and winter and the lack of A/C wasn’t that big a deal.

On May 1st, it was like Mother Nature flipped a switch and it got HOT out. Bleah. I had also already made plans to repatriate back to Canada and sell my Jeep, but the A/C was a selling point so I should really get it fixed finally. I’ve been thinking about getting it fixed for over a month now, and was starting to make calls around to see where I should take it.

This morning, after I popped into Paperman’s at the Strand (a 30 second drive from home) it was hot and muggy in the Jeep. Thinking that warmish air was better than no air, I reached down and turned the knob for the A/C which controls the blower and… WHAT THE DEUCE??? COLD AIR??? Surely it must be a figment of my imagination! Maybe it’s just the cool morning air in the pipes from having been parked in the shade… but no! It got colder! It stayed cold! It stayed cold all the way to work!

I’m going to give it a workout over the next week or so and see if it was an anomaly or if I’ve been sweating and feeling all gross by the time I get to work the last year or so!

Update: Well it's not working again. For a couple days I thought I had it figured out: make sure you turn the A/C off before turning off the engine but during my not-so-scientific-method of testing it, I shut off the engine with the a/c on and it hasn't come back on yet. I can't feel the "pull" on the engine when the compressor kicks in, so I think all things considered it's a wiring issue rather than anything REALLY major like a compressor because when it blew cold it was ICCCCCCCE cold! Time to break out the anti monkey-butt powder!