OT: The phantom oil pool

[whiskychaser]

Panic call from her this afternoon. Somebody has pointed out a 'pool of oil' about a foot across under her car. Sounds serious. Decide to swap cars and give it urgent attention. But half way there she calls to say she is on her way home. So immediately on arrival I'm on the floor but find nothing coming off the sump or block. Or anywhere else. But then something dripped near the bulkhead. So its bonnet up - to find water dripping out of the aircon drain. I casually ask if she has had the aircon running. She claims not to have had it on since last week. Which is strange cos the compressor is running. A quick check and 'oh yes, its on'. She now claims the 'pool' was in a different spot from where the drip came. But she has decided this may be because the car was on a hill. I agree

[e34.535i.sport]

Panic call from her this afternoon. Somebody has pointed out a 'pool of oil' about a foot across under her car. Sounds serious. Decide to swap cars and give it urgent attention. But half way there she calls to say she is on her way home. So immediately on arrival I'm on the floor but find nothing coming off the sump or block. Or anywhere else. But then something dripped near the bulkhead. So its bonnet up - to find water dripping out of the aircon drain. I casually ask if she has had the aircon running. She claims not to have had it on since last week. Which is strange cos the compressor is running. A quick check and 'oh yes, its on'. She now claims the 'pool' was in a different spot from where the drip came. But she has decided this may be because the car was on a hill. I agree

Ha ha ha I like it! Please forgive me if this is a stupid question: Is the air con meant to drip anyway??!

[whiskychaser]

Ha ha ha I like it! Please forgive me if this is a stupid question: Is the air con meant to drip anyway??!

Its just condensation like you get in the back of the fridge. Only the car doesnt have a little bucket underneath to collect it and let it evaporate - it just dumps it on the floor

[bubba966]

I had a brief moment of panic last week similar to that. I pulled into a spot and caught sight of a severe drip & pool of liquid underneath the car as I was walking away. At first glance it looked like a significant coolant leak. But I stuck a finger in it and it wasn't hot, and didn't taste like coolant (just tasted like water).

Now I always leave the AC on and am fully aware of the condensation drip/puddle that happens. But I've never, ever seen this level of dripping before from the AC condenser.

Then I recalled that I didn't have the AC on low like I usually do. Had it on full tilt for nearly 30 minutes. Figured that was the cause of the excessive drip as the fluid looked clear, was cool, and tasted like water.

Still was freaked out for a quick moment...

[shogun]

if the aircon does not drip, then you have a problem because the drain is clogged and you will have water inside the car.
So if it drips, do not worry, and of course it drips sometimes more or less depending on humidity. We now have raining season here and sometimes with humidity >90%, THAT causes dripping.

[Ferret]

Its just condensation like you get in the back of the fridge. Only the car doesnt have a little bucket underneath to collect it and let it evaporate - it just dumps it on the floor

After I had the 540i regassed, it used to drop water everywhere during some of the more humid summer days. Used to park it up and 5 minutes later it looked like it'd pissed itself, amazing amounts of water running away on the hilly carpark at quite some rate!

Several van drivers would helpfully yell "Oi mate, your cars got a coolant leak!" as they went past... stopped trying to explain it after the first week.

[Ross]

Two X chromosome syndrome.