Lately my '02 Touring has had some odd symptoms. The a/c will stop working for no reason and then come back on. My mechanic says one thing that could cause this is the ambient temp sensor. The other item that might have an issue is the condenser fan assembly. On the forums he could look at there seems to be no good diagnostic test for this part. The one clue is the condenser fan kind of tries to start but never fully comes on during operation. Does anyone know of a diagnostic or this is just a case of change the assembly. Thanks
Good question for Charlson - in the meantime, wedophones only has some etm's up to 2001, you could snag one of those and peruse the a/c section, which might have something for what to test even though different car, maybe a/c system design/parts enough in common for some carryover. http://wedophones.com/BMWManualsLead.htm
To check this easily let the vehicle heat up and switch the ac on to max the condenser fan should run. The ac can be shut off if the engine can't be cooled properly. Does you temp reading ever for the outside ever show a issue? If you have good bmw software you can activate the fan and see if it runs if not check power to the fan if good replace the fan.
Thanks for the info. My temp garage always stays in normal range. This is a very isolated incident. That is why is is so odd