AC Clutch Issues - Two have failed

[MinColorado]

Hi all, I bought my Mazda 5 last June wtih 37,500 miles on it, out of warranty. 10 days later the AC stopped working, and three opinions later it was determined it was the AC clutch. Everyone was surprised it would fail on such a young car. I just replaced it with a used part from a Mazda 5 with 19,000. After 7 days, it failed. I am so discouraged. Has anyone else had this issue? Is it possible there is an electrical issue causing the clutch to fail somehow? The part had a 90 day warranty on it, but there's a dispute about the labor costs. And I don't want to replace it again, if it's just going to fail again. But I can't live without AC for another summer! All help appreciated.

 

[Davebert]

My 2006 AC clutch failed about 3 years ago but I think it has been broken for a year before that because the AC was still sorta working but we would sometimes get a knocking sound from the front of the car. It took a couple of visits to the local shop before they tracked down the noise and found the defected AC clutch. A new one was put in and it has been working fine since.

However, we did have a problem with the AC where it would only work when the car was moving not when we were stuck in city traffic. It turned out to be a loose connection to the radiator fan, so the fan would never come on. Figured this out when we were stuck in traffic and the temp gauge when to "H" and had to turn on the heating to keep the car from over heating.

This year the AC was only blowing cold air from the passenger vent and not very cold air from the driver side. A friend had a RedTek recharge kit with a gauge so I used it to recharged the system only used 1 6oz can of R12a. Before that the gauge show 15psi on the
low side now it shows around 30psi (still a little low) but it is now blowing cold air from all the vents. I will wait a little longer before trying to top up the system to make sure there is no leak and don't want to over charge the system.