08 Four Runner Dual climate driver side blows room temp when LO is selected

Been searching the forums and have found nothing.

I verified the drivers side air diverter actuator is working as well as the air diverter valve in the plentumn. That's all good and works as advertized.

The problem is the AC on the drivers side, as the passengers side blows cold air just fine.

I'm stumped, if it was a freon issue I would assume both drivers and passengers side AC would blow the same temp.

Any information anyone can provide will be greatly appreiciated!

Thank you in advance!

Shawn

 

You would be shocked; I thought the same thing when my 2010 Tacoma started doing this in 2017 and it took until August 2018 (after my mechanic recharged it twice) to finally find the issue. I figured that if the refrigerant was low then it wouldn't not be blowing ICE COLD on the driver's side, cool out of the center right vent, and outside temp on the far right.

Turns out that my truck did have a refrigerant leak. My issue ended up being the evaporator core, and I am in no way saying that this is the problem with your T4R, but more than likely it needs a recharge and there is a leak somewhere.

The dealer put UV dye in with the refrigerant when they recharged it, and that's how they found the leak; I opted to have the evap core replaced, and haven't had a problem with the A/C since, even more than five years and about 90K miles (and one frame replacement, courtesy of Toyota) later!

I think that the reason the A/C in Tacos and T4Rs does this when the refrigerant is low, is due to the location of the evap core. If the leak is severe enough, the A/C will stop blowing cold altogether. Thankfully, this never happened to me.

Also, fun fact: "Freon" hasn't been used in Toyota vehicles since 1993. Freon for automotive and domestic refrigerator use is known as R-12, and the government phased out its use after the 1994 model year. Some manufacturers started using R134a refrigerant for MY1993, and by 1994 all Japanese manufacturers were using it.

 

Thank you Pennsilvertaco for the reply. I guess I'll take in to a garage and have the refrigerant checked just to be sure. After all it is 15 years old and has 250K+ miles on it.

Thanks again for the reply and info!

 

When my truck was low, it ended up being about a pound low. Make sure you have the mechanic use the UV dye!

 

Just a follow up..... The garage found the refrigerant to be low, just like you guys said.

He added some refrigerant and imeditely the driver side vents were blowing the same temp ice cold air as the passengers side.

I would like to see a schematic of the condenser in an attempt to better understand why this condition exists, as it makes no sense to me why one side can be good and the other side not good at the same time?

Thank you again for replying and the useful info, I greatly appreiciate it!