A/C system noise/whistling - lets sum all the information pals

[Starion]

There's several threads on this topic, but this one seems to be the best.

I request & advise each of you to try to capture your experiences on video & post to YouTube. Sound pickup can be hit & miss on some phones.

Also PLEASE, to have a case you MUST make sure they give you a printed write up of the diagnostics and services performed when you take your Civic in for this to be fixed. Make sure they at least state what they found and that they "cannot do anything else", if that's what you were told.

FYI, my service rep tried every time to give me the keys without doing this ^. I even had to wait an extra hour for them to type up their report. He gave me some story about having to close the ticket and start a new one to access it. Don't accept that. I politely said, "okay, I'll wait, but need it in writing so you get credit for trying!"

Make them admit in writing to hearing the sound if they tell you verbally!! It's a clearly design default and it seems nobody has received a fix yet.


Keep the comments & experiences coming folks. Thanks

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[NCMattJ]

I have a brand new, literally off the truck 2019 Civic Sport with this same issue. Have had it since day one and it is the reason I sought out this forum. Glad to know it is not just me. I am taking my Civic in to get the "Honda Care Package" added this Saturday and am trying to make an appointment to get this looked at. I am not optimistic they will fix anything.

 

[Jake Speed]

‘17 Civic Si, checking in. Dismayed to see not much has changed since I posted about this a year ago. Glad to see this thread. I really hope a solution is found!

 

[CivicChina]

Had this noise since 2016, only when it's really hot outside and the ac works at full power. I never really worried about it and everything works just fine.

 

[UnknownCTR]

I just heard the same sound a couple of nights ago. It has been below average cold here in SoCal and I heard the whistle, turned off climate control and sound went away. HB Sport 2018 purchased February 2018 6900 miles currently.

 

[NCMattJ]

This is the noise I’m getting. Car is only a week old. 2019 Honda Civic Sport assembled in Indiana. I took it to Appletree Honda in Asheville, NC today and they wrote it off as normal. I can’t believe an engineer somewhere in Japan thought this was acceptable. It’s definitely the A/C compressor.

 

[NCMattJ]

This is the noise I’m getting. Car is only a week old. 2019 Honda Civic Sport assembled in Indiana. I took it to Appletree Honda in Asheville, NC today and they wrote it off as normal. I can’t believe an engineer somewhere in Japan thought this was acceptable. It’s definitely the A/C compressor.

Forgot the video:

 

[johnc_22]

My 2017 Sedan now has this whirring/chirping noise. I do have tinnitus but can hear it plainly. It hasn't always made this noise. It stops if I turn the system off. I'll have to test with just the blower on and compressor off and vice-versa. My car is still under warranty for another 13K miles so I'll get it looked at then. I also have a horrible rattle on the passenger underbody during colder temps (I suspect exhaust, but not sure) so I'd like that fixed too.

 

[Prozento]

I tested this sound in almost 10 cars if not more from the first reply - all of hatchbacks have this soind exactly in the same RPM...
Guess we should just wait until someone will finally admit it and will make a recall or we will just....stuck with it (more realistic sollution)

 

[powow66]

Hey guys, so I was finally able to bring my car to the dealer to investigate my A/C whine noise. I apologize for the delay on this, as I had posted earlier about making some content around the issue. I still intend to make a YouTube video on this topic, but for now I wanted to report on the progress I've made with the AC noise I'm hearing in my 2017 Civic Si Sedan and what I experienced when bringing it in for a warranty claim at a local dealer in Massachusetts.

TLDR: I got my A/C system issues documented and reviewed (as posted previously) by Honda service technicians and walked out with a scheduled compressor replacement that will be covered under warranty. I'll plan to report back on this thread this weekend.


Long Story:
I brought my car in today and explained the A/C symptoms of my car to the service desk, then technicians, and even a few people moving cars around on site. Nobody said that they've heard of this issue before and it seemed to me that this was the first time they're hearing of it. As of today my car has 35,526 miles on the odometer. It has been a rainy day at about 55 deg F outside, which were decent enough weather conditions to bring the car in because I could hear the whine sound the entire ride commuting to and from work as the A/C system engaged to de-humidify the outside air coming into the car. The previous week I brought the car in to the same dealer, but they said they couldn't perform any diagnostics because it was too cold outside to diagnose the A/C system (0 degrees F outside that day).

Today, the first technician took the car for a test drive, came back and reported that he found that my aftermarket air filter was the cause of the problem. After a little bit of conversation we came to an agreement that although there was a hissing sound coming from the cabin air filter cover (because the aftermarket one didn't fit like snug like the oem filter), the noise I was talking about was totally different. This noise was occurring only when the A/C system was engaged, independent of when the air circulation fan was running overall. This noise also started around 3500 miles or so, while it had the stock cabin air filter.

Eventually, the first technician agreed to take me along for a test drive so that I can show him the exact whine noises I was hearing. As soon as we re-started the car and pulled out onto the street, we tested the car by accelerating between 2500-4000 RPM in second gear (this was the condition that replicated the whine sound best for me). We did this a few times, manually toggling the AC system off via the climate control screen (essentially switching between auto-climate control mode and fan-only mode). I was relieved because I could clearly hear the whine noise again (in auto-climate control mode) and successfully pointed out to the technician that it wasn't coming from the area around the cabin air filter. The whine noise was more audible as more throttle input was applied during these tests too. Most notably, as the car coasted down from 4000RPM with the A/C system engaged, we both heard a more audible, metallic "ring" sound at 3500 RPM which faded into the usual whine sound as RPMs continued to drop (it kinda sounded like a finger running on the edge of a wineglass, as past comments also noted).

It was this during these tests that the technician finally agreed with me that there was indeed an abnormal noise coming from somewhere in the A/C system of my car. He also proceeded to state that he has the same car as a daily driver with similar mileage, but without experiencing my symptoms. Comparing his observations on his car to my car, he seemed accepting to dive deeper on my specific A/C system issue. After getting the car looked at and test driven by a second technician, they decided that they wanted to go through with an A/C compressor replacement that was fully covered under warranty. They reported that everything else in the A/C system checked out fine.

Additional comments on this topic/my experience:
I wanted to say that I agree with Starion on an earlier post stating that although some dealers have been attributing the A/C compressor as the fault for this issue and know they have found some defects, I'm also not sure if the new compressor I'll be getting has any design changes to resolve the original issues. HOWEVER, the service providers assured me that if the noise comes back they are happy to replace it once again. I hope this offer applies to anyone looking to take their cars in to their local dealer for similar issues. I'm confident Honda will take care of us, but I agree that all of us experiencing the issue need to be assertive to our local dealers to bring everyone on common ground.

IMO, warranty claims involving weird "sounds" is understandably a headache for technicians to deal with and I get that they would want to avoid replacing parts especially if the issues are not well documented with our newer cars. This entire experience today at the dealer took me 3 hours from when I walked into the service department to leaving with a scheduled warranty service. They seemed really busy that day so it was crucial to be patient to get enough time to talk through all my concerns surrounding my A/C system.

I understand that this issue isn't a debilitating issue for the car's overall functionality, but it sucks that the exposure on this issue is still low. I appreciate the comments and feedback people have made here. It's been awesome to discuss with all of you experiencing the same issue.

I can't guarantee when I will be posting a video on this topic, but I was happy to find that most of my experience today got recorded on my dash camera with audio (I'll be blurring out faces to keep their identities anonymous).

Sorry for the long post guys. Cheers and have a nice day!

 

[powow66]

Post-warranty service update with my A/C compressor:

Hey guys, so last Saturday I went into my local dealer to get my A/C compressor replaced. Dropped the car off at 8:30AM and didn't get my car back until 6:30PM cuz the place was packed with cars on arrival. I got worried I'd have to come back another day, but luckily a few employees remembered me from the other day and got me on the service queue.

When I picked up the car, I was able to speak to the master tech that ended up working on my car. He stated that after some digging through their own Honda tech forums he was able to confirm that some of the earlier 10th gen civics had defective compressors.

After driving with the new compressor for a few days I can definitely say that the whine is gone. There is still a very faint "whir" from the compressor at 2500 & 3500 RPM, but nothing close to what it sounded like previously. All in all, I'm happy with the way they handled this compressor replacement. Before I left, I asked the technician how much would it have been if my car was out of warranty...his answer was a hefty $2500, a price that includes 5 hours of labor at $129/hr. Hope all this info helps! Cheers

 

[gabrielanez97]

I was having this issue my mechanic told me I had a bad compressor pulley so I ordered another compressor and they installed it today and the compressor was not pushing any pressure, the clutch was engaging correctly but there was no pressure, any ideas what the problem could be?

 

[pdimar25]

Not only it whistles on my but also makes some sort of intermittent gurgling sound which last 3-4 seconds at a time and then goes away. It’s been douing that for a while now, maybe from day 1, not sure. Anyone else noticing the sound as well?

Mine does this when I cold start, It'll gurgle for about 4 seconds when the AC is turned on and then it goes away. I also have the whistle with the AC on, mine happens usually when I cruse, and then a hard-ish acceleration makes it go away. But then it comes back.

 

[fitz318is]

Let's keep this thread going. I've taken it in twice now and have documentation of what you are referring to. Other brand new same vehicles are also showing the symptoms. Mine AC whine is getting worse I swear!



The next and final opportunity for them to addres it is apparently a Honda Field Tech, who they refer to as their "guru" and highest level of support. I've been told "there is nothing else we can do at this point". This tech is hard to schedule and I'm told "it can take weeks".

If this is a significant enough problem to annoy the hell out of multiple customers, then need to make it right.

I got the same response for increased shifter resistance on my manual. It's getting increasingly more "crunchy" and hard to get it into gears. Can't be good for synchros, and will lead to early failure and decreased drivability which is already the case, but that's a different thread. PLEASE keep the comments rolling here AND on my recently posted YouTube video above. Don't give up and accept this.

2018 6sp LX HB reporting in with both the AC whine (and crunchy gearbox). Car has about 13000kms on it now but these started before 5k.

My AC whine is most pronounced between 2-3000 rpms. The dealer has looked at it once and said they all do that. To me that means they are all bad because no brand new car should sound like that. Not all 1.5's exhibit the whine as I have spoken with a few CRV and sedan owners who do not have the issue. The sedan and CRV seem to share a part number for the compressor but our HB's have a different one that costs a whole lot more money here. Im curious why the PNs and costs are different. I was hoping it would be as easy as using a sedan compressor in the HB but since some sedans owners have reported in this thread that would appear not the case. This noise is annoying.

 

[Jules]

I have been told NUMEROUS times by local Honda service staff that the extremely unpleasant noise made when AC system is engaged has been determined as NORMAL and I have no choice but to live with it. It is NOT NORMAL and is UNACCEPTABLE and anyone that believes it is normal and acceptable has rocks for brains. Long story short, a screaming type noise started for me when car was 5 months old (it is now 14 months old with 40,000 kms) and is an obvious erratic compressor noise to ANYONE that hears it, and a rattling/gurgling/vibrating type noise that resonates from behind dashboard where evaporator and expansion valve are located. Have been back into service soooo many times it is sickening. They claim they have done EVERYTHING to troubleshoot the problem. However they did not do one of the most simplest of tasks until my car put me off the road with iced/fogged up windows during this winter. Must of been the 'safety' aspect that got them to investigate further. Here is what was found at my most recent visit; Compressor was seized. Now, because they FOUND a problem they could now follow with the next baby steps to find out WHY. They checked the levels of the refrigerant (something that was NEVER done during any other visit) and they FOUND the levels to be EXTREMELY low. This prompted MYSELF to push them onto yet another baby step as to find out WHY the levels were extremely low. They had to have my car for a few days. They put a type of dye into the ac system to find a leak, and they used a "sniffer" device to find location of leak and voila leak was found at condenser. They replaced condenser and a few small associated parts, refilled refrigerant to proper level, did pressure check and that was it. This fix did NOT make the unpleasant noises go away. I trusted during all prior visits they had done EVERYTHING to troubleshoot but they did not, refrigerant levels were NEVER checked because of their poor decisions. I have been convinced from very beginning (10 months ago now) it is a faulty/defective compressor but this has fell on deaf ears. The ac system is now compromised, poisoned and is still in need of a further fix, even if it means replacing all the components in the entire system. Well, the nightmare continues for me, now having to deal with this new matter, that resulted from their own ignorance and poor decisions.

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