jmauld

Today in the hot NC weather, I noticed that my AC was leaking water on to the passenger side floor board. Has anyone else had this problem? I'm going to call the dealership tomorrow, but I was just wanting to see if it was a common problem beforehand.

tut_tutZOOM

I had the same exact problem (dripping condensation on the passenger's feet!), typically occurring only after running the AC for a couple of hours (while traveling out of state in mid-summer for example). It was accompanied with an increase in the temperature of air coming out of the vents. I pulled over and looked under the hood and saw that the coolant lines had frozen solid with a layer of ice on the hoses/pipes.

When I complained to my dealer about this, all he did was run a test on my car after the engine had run only about 15 minutes (the time it took to get to the dealer) and told me the air coming out of the vents was within the acceptable range. This was after telling me that my "problem" with the AC not getting cold was because the temperature control was set to the hot side (it had been a rather cool morning so I ran the heat on the way to the dealers)...that made me a little hot under the collar that he would try and insult my intelligence like that. Trust me, I'm in graduate school to get my Ph.D. in particle physics so my intelligence doesn't get insulted too easily.

I guess our dealers aren't working too hard to keep our business. I've actually quit taking my car to the dealer for oil changes and am doing my first solo change this evening!

That's my Protege AC experience for what it's worth.

jmauld

Hey Tut_Tut, thanks for the response. I knew this is what I would be facing. I'm going to take it to the dealership at least for them to have one more complaint. I am also not above going over the dealerships head and complaining to mazda about the service that I received.

Next time this happens I will check the pipes under the hood to see if this is what occured on mine as well. I don't remember an increase in temperatures when it started dripping. My wife just noticed water dropping on her feet.

What dealer did you take the car to? I hate dealerships and any mechanics that I don't personally know. Every single time that I took my car to one I ended up fixing something they did wrong, so I figured I would learn how to do everything myself. Not to long ago I rebuilt the head on my mirage in my apartment parking lot.. It's not as difficult as "they" would have you believe.

Oil changes are definitely a good start and doing that will save you $20 every change. Might not be much, but it adds up over the lifetime of the car, and plus you have the assurance that it was done correctly.

chdesign

There are alot of protege enthusisast in NC maybe we should all get together a Meet like in Hickory or something.

tut_tutZOOM

I hear ya. I'm out of the Triangle for the summer so will have the opportunity to try out some different dealers (although I hope that I won't need to take it in very much, besides the looming 30K check, that is!). My dealer back home is University Mazda in Durham. Where do you plan on going?

Josh

jmauld

I'm going to take it to Crapitol Mazda in Cary.

We should have a meet in RTP somewhere! There's a yellow/white protege that has a lot of graphics and at least a different muffler, around the cary area.

I actually want to hear some of the different exhaust systems in person so I can get one that's not too much louder then stock.

tut_tutZOOM

ditto on the muffler.
A meet sounds like fun, although I'm in Chicago until late August (I don't know how long it would take to get one together...). I'll have one of big_ben's custom cold-air intakes installed by then and maybe have time/money to do a few other things.
-Josh

Eric F

Tut, you should join us for our upcoming Chicago area meet on July 21st. Check the Upper Midwest regional section for the Illinios Meet #3. Depending on when you guys get the NC meet together, I might try to make that. Some of my family lives in Greenville, SC.