My 2.0 litre NC ( soft top ) naturally has no air con but the recent weather has made driving very uncomfortable, even with the hood down. Is it possible to fit air conditioning to my MX5.? and if so, how and where.
Thanks in advance.
It could be done but would be an expensive and difficult undertaking.
Unfortunately the best honest advice to you if you want air conditioning is to sell the existing car and buy a replacement with it already fitted.
We have had some unprecedented hot weather over the last few days. It is easy to lose sight of how rare this is in England so I would wait until Autumn before deciding to change car to faciliate a feature that may not be used that much.
^^^ What he said, I would like the same but is it worth it? It was just bearable on Monday of this week but we never used the car again until yesterday, too hot. Different I guess if it’s your daily driver.
Even had 31C in the central belt of Scotland on Thursday when we had my 93 year old mother in law in the car. She overheats very easily
I had to take the whole front bumper and grill off the Impreza last week to replace the temperature sendor that controls the AC, job took 3 hours as some of the plastic clips got stuck. Hottest I remember there was around 25C some years ago in an another Impreza.
The part weighed 6 gram’s and cost £65 that is around £300 an ounce.
Gold is around the same per ounce.
It kept the car very cool.
This is something I have asked in the past and received the same advice. I have chosen to ignore these people and their perfectly sensible advice! I plan to forge ahead regardless!
So far I have found out that the procedure for fitting the AC involves obtaining all the bits. Compressor, Heater Matrix (with ac evaporator), controls, condenser with dryer & expansion valve and pipes. All available from your favourite bidding site.
The next step is the bit that puts people off. You basically have to remove the interior from the car (including the steering column) to get to the heater box. Once that’s done you need to make sure all the required sensors are in place. These include an ambient temp sensor at the front of the car (fingers crossed the wires are there if the sensor is not), a cabin temperature sensor and a solar sensor. Before fully replacing the dash you may as well stick the AC controls on to the head unit. Then it’s front off the car to fit the condenser with expansion valve and dryer. Then it’s new pulleys and fit the condenser to where the idler pulley currently sits and find the wiring to attach it to. Connect it all together with the pipes you have and get it charged up. Finally it’s time to give it a try and work out which piece I have forgotten to fit/buy and get that.
See nothing to it really!
I have made a little progress. I have the heater controls and a heater matrix with the AC part. Some of the sensors required to get the auto up and running bother me a little, it’s hard to judge where the sensors are supposed to be when they are not already fitted to the car. I might end up bypassing the auto component and have a manual switch that will turn the AC on and off and leave the manual controls in there particularly if the sensor and compressor wiring is not present.
Worst case I spend £300 on parts I can’t use and a weekend or two taking my car apart. I will certainly learn a lot about my car in the process.