Somewhere past Grapevine traveling southbound to LA...
"How many miles till 20?" I ask Senior Video Specialist John Adolph from the passenger seat. "We got about another 17 miles or so." There is silence. We've been traveling in the car for eight hours so far that day. The day before we had done 10 hours. We're a little brain dead and tired.
"So what do you think about the Dodgers going bankrupt?" I ask John, a die-hard blue blood. John is a little mad about the situation. We talk for a while until "CRAP!" John exclaimed as he looks closely at the instrument panel. "We're at 15 over!"
We searched for a safe place to pull over, about another three miles down the road. We're a little worn out, so I guess it's forgivable. And to be honest, the Outlander hasn't helped much.
It's getting warm in SoCal, so from the moment we left from Johns house in Glendale we'd been pumping the AC. Except it wasn't blowing cold. We had it on max and it blew lukewarm. It was only 88 degrees out, so it wasn't like it was being overwhelmed. It seems awfully suspicious for a recharge to be necessary under 20k. We did notice on the way back, when it was much warmer than 88 degrees out, that if we lowered the fan, by a lot, it did blow noticeably cooler. Just not the 64 we had asked for.
Also, we got the dead butt. The kind of uncomfortable feeling you get on your back side from sitting in an uncomfortable seat for too long. We started squirming a little over an hour into the drives. Not the best comfort or support.
On the whole I'm still a fan of the Outlander. I think I'm being fairly critical on the Outlander now because I was uncomfortable over the long haul. Maybe there is something up with the AC so that might be forgivable, but now I know the seats aren't the best for road trips. Next road trip I think I might try for one of our minivans.
Scott Jacobs, Sr Mgr, Photography
hybris says:
07:25 PM, 06/27/11
This things A/C has been more or less shot from the day you got it. Not surprising.
fushigi says:
07:40 PM, 06/27/11
What's surprising is that IL never got it properly fixed and chose to keep griping about it instead. It was stated before that Mitsu had a bad batch of compressors and that the problem was rectified. I stated it here on IL and it's been mentioned on Edmund's forums.
My GT has the same black interior and in the 90+ degree Chicago weather the AC keeps it nicely chilled.
I shrug at the seat comfort issue. It isn't an issue for me but the human body comes in many shapes & sizes so what some find comfortable, others won't. It's fine for me though I admit I've not done any 10 hour stints. Chicago to just past St. Louis is the longest I've done straight and that was fine for me + 4 adult passengers.
cr_driver says:
10:49 PM, 06/27/11
Just take care of it.
bgw says:
04:52 AM, 06/28/11
"It was only 88 degrees out"
Here where I live, 88 is one of the hottest days of the summer.
Only 88. Sheesh. It's 53 F here right now. (9:30am)
bodyblue says:
05:10 AM, 06/28/11
"What's surprising is that IL never got it properly fixed and chose to keep griping about it instead"
I thought the dealer replaced the a/c compressor? Take a look at the July 2010 blogs...they talk about it.
blackngold1000 says:
06:22 AM, 06/28/11
I think the key word is "properly". I bought an Outlander GT in May of last year. About one week after, IL reported their A/C proble, mine crapped out too. Dealer fixed it. My A/C now blows as well as any of my other cars' A/C. I agree with Fushigi. Stop whining and get it fixed properly.
achilles_heels says:
10:16 AM, 07/20/11
My 2010 GT just went over 22k miles and the fan just went out. Turns out the heater fan regulator is bad. It's going to take a week for the part to come in. Hottest week of the year too. I guess it beats going out in the middle of winter. When my fan worked, the A/C worked decent. Not great, but not bad.
I also got the dead butt after a couple hours. Went on a road trip from Colorado Springs to San Antonio last fall. Attributed it to the seats being new and not broken in yet. Seems to have gotten better since then.
Regardless, I still love my GT. Just wish I had A/C blowing right now.