A/C blows warm and engine coolant is low

[20Bonneville00]

Hey everyone. I've got two problems right now on my 2000 Bonneville. First problem is the A/C. I bought the car about a month ago and the A/C has blown cold up until about 2 days ago. I first noticed the warm air on my way home from work. At first the driver side air blew warm while the passenger air stayed cold. Now both the the driver and passenger blow warm. I've never dealt with A/C problems before so I'm in the dark on this issue.

The second problem I am having is that my car takes dex-cool. Unfortunately I didn't even know dex-cool was a thing until after I refilled the reservoir. I refilled it about two weeks ago and now the reservoir is basically empty again and I haven't noticed any leaks or anything. I really don't even know if i have a major problem or not so any help would be appreciated!

[Trinity]

Stop driving it right now. You have the 3.8 intake shuffle going on. Do a search on lower intake gasket here. As to the air, maybe low freon level.

Most likely, the intake gasket is cracked and you are either dumping coolant in the oil or burning it... either way the engine will eat itself if you keep driving it.

Do a search and get it fixed immediately.

[Archon]

Read up on these articles. This first one, you can skip over the part regarding the upper intake, as your supercharger takes its place. The information regarding the lower is still valid for your car.
http://www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com/fo ... c1061.html

This, with a slight change of removing the superchargers instead of the upper will show you how to change it out. Doing a further search will provide you with more information.

If you do have a coolant leak, as mentioned, stopped driving the car and drain the contaminated oil out ASAP. Refill with some cheap oil, and run it for a minute or so to try and clear out any coolant, then drain again.

I agree that the most likely cause for your a/c problem is low refrigerant.

[20Bonneville00]

I went to the mechanic and he told me to fill up the coolant again and see if my oil level rises (right now it's a quart low). If I'm burning the oil would it burn white and would it be visible out the tailpipes? My mechanic looked at my oil and said it looked fine thus far but told me to keep checking it.

As far as the AC goes, I bought two 12 ounce cans of r134 refill and when I hooked up the guage it showed that the presure was good. The air still didn't blow cold so I checked to make sure the compressor was running and it was but still no cold air. I really don't know what to do at this point!

[00Beast]

Waiting till you have coolant in your oil is like a doctor telling you to wait till you've bled out till he sews you up...

[20Bonneville00]

I realize that but what else can I do? I mean worse case scenario is I have to replace my lower intake gasket but I don't know that for sure unless there is coolant in the oil right?

[00Beast]

Look between the LIM and the head. The gasket there will either be black or silver. Black means it's the OEM one, and is a matter of when it's going to fail, not if. If it's silver, then it's been replaced with the aluminum replacements, and you need to look elsewhere for your leak.

[bobgto65]

Are you still losing coolant after the reservoir refill? If so then it is leaking somewhere. If you do not see any leaks, then if could be the LIM. You can also do a pressure test on the coolant system to locate a leak.

[Trinity]

No! Worse case scenario is the motor spins a bearing or bends rods, pops a piston or some combination thereof!

If the coolant is missing, and it's not on the ground, it had to go somewhere. It might or might not go into the oil. It might just dump it in a cylinder and burn it as if it were fuel. It can eat rings, bend valves and perhaps hydro-lock see--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrolock and break the motor. If it goes in the oil it eats bearings and will eventually sieze the motor. You can not wait for an overt sign that something is wrong because if you do, the sign you will get is a hurt or junk motor. Trust these guys and myself on this one, we aren't being over-dramatic here. If it's leaking it's already doing damage to the motor.

But hey, if you want to ignore the advise, roll the dice and see how you fair.

[20Bonneville00]

So after 10 days I've noticed very little if any coolant loss. Everything has been running fine except yesterday while driving down the highway the engine randomly shut off. I pulled it off to the side and it started right back up so I really have no idea what that's all about or if it could even be related.

I recharged my A/C system and it helped for about a day but now the driver side is blowing warm again while the passenger side is cold. Could this be a bad temp sensor in the climate control? I'm also getting water in the floor of the drivers side. It seems to pool right beneath my knee when I'm sitting in the seat. I read that sometimes the A/C condensation drains get clogged and that could leak into the carpet but wouldn't that be closer to the firewall?