[mullinac]

Yesterday I changed the transistor assembly on my 2003 Honda Odyssey. I did this after reading of the same problems that others had, and this fixed there's. My air conditioner worked for about 30 minutes. Then (set at 71 degrees) it suddenly cut off. I turned it to 60 degrees and I got a face full of hot air again. My husband is pushing to take it to a mechanic, but I hate to. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[tom34diy]

I'm no expert, but I believe the symptoms that would suggest a bad transistor assembly would be no blowing air at all. If air is blowing, that should mean the blower (near the transistor assembly) is working. If your problem is warm air, my initial thought would be to check the freon level. It might help to be more specific in your symptoms before and after the replacement, like when you say cut off, it totally stopped blowing again? Maybe others can help more.

 

[mullinac]

From reading previous posts on this site and others, they said that the air would blow hot air, wide open, at the highest and lowest settings when the transistor assembly went bad. I, and some others who were posting, thought there must be two different problems; however, when they changed their transistor assemblies their problems went away. Mine went away temporarily. We drove for about 20 minutes with great cool air. We stopped for lunch (cut it off for about 1 hour), and then drove about another 10 minutes before it quit.

When it quit, the blower cut off. The display was still showing that it should be in Auto at 71 degrees. We tried turning it down to 60, and after several seconds it finally came back on full force with hot (outside temp.) air.

 

[tom34diy]

Sorry I cannot help out more. My experience was with an Acura, not the Odyssey, and the replacement of the thermal cutoof inside the assembly solved the problem for us. Did you replace the entire assembly, or just the thermal cutoff inside? If the former, I'd guess something else is wrong that led to it stopping again. If the latter, then it might be worth trying again since the cutoffs are so cheap. Maybe you did not replace the plastic sleeves over the wire and it shorted? Maybe someone will offer better suggestions. Sorry your first attempt did not work out.

 

[SuperDad]

I suspect the transistor has failed again.

 

[William Wiles]

Your husband is a smart man. To even makw a guess we need a full explanation of what it is doing. The AC in the Odyssey is not the same as the simple compresser evaporator units of old. It takes a good understanding of how it works and some computer knowledge. I would take it to a good AC shop or the dealed unless you have the money to throw money at it.

 

[mullinac]

This is to update almost 5 years later...the new transistor assembly did go bad, but it occurred due to our error. He wanted me to plug it up so that we could test it, and get on the road. Later, I re-read some of the posts and realized that the heat sink required installation into the air duct to keep cool. It overheated, and the little fuse inside blew. We bought a new one, and this fixed the problem.