I have a 2001 Mazda Protege. When taking off from a stop when I have the fan on it makes a loud squeel, kinda like when a belt is slipping (I changed the belt twice, it's not the belt). When getting up to a certain speed, it stops, or, when I turn the a/c off, it will stop. I have to keep turning off my a/c when coming to a stop. Does anyone have any info on this? The a/c works fine, it's just the loud noise it makes and I'd hate to have to replace the whole unit. Thanks

Craig

 

Yup, I know what you mean. Last year my neighbor (auto mechanic) started working on my belt that was squeeling. He has replaced it, I have replaced it, and it would still squeel if we would run the AC. We don't now, since the mechanic put gages on the system and found out that we have extroidinarily high pressure on the high side (400 psi.....). We are thinking that there is some kind of a blockage, maybe in the expansion valve or something else. If you want to keep from damaging your compressor, I would suggest not running the AC until you can have a mechanic look at it. I bet your compressor is running hard because of the excessive back pressure. I did replace a compressor last year after squeeling started, but the new compressor/belt is doing the same thing........

Lest we make the same mistakes as others............