Acrid smoke started billowing out of the rear of my car this afternoon, accompanied by a loud, screeching noise - never a pleasant experience. When I cautiously opened the engine hood, fire extinguisher at the ready, I was met with the sight of molten rubber/plastic oozing out of the A/C compressor. Any suggestions as to what happened here? Clearly, the compressor is a gonner. I recently had all the belts replaced and wonder whether there is any connection to today's incident, or whether the timing is coincidental.

Any help and advice would, as ever, be much appreciated.

Thank you.

 

Yuck! I presume you know that you can just cut the A/C belt in order to continue on.

Maybe the A/C clutch has some sort of rubber dampener within.

Andreas

 

Bump....

I'm curious as to what happened.

 

recently took a spare aircon compressor apart (i need a new clutch on mine as the wires are broken) there is some form of resin over the coil of wires (from my thinking its basically a electromagnet), could it be that the electromagnet has someway shorted inside and the heat has melted the resin that holds the wires in? as I say its just a theory, i can not comment exactly what happened on this occasion

 

Ist that belt a Porsche belt? Not that it has anything to do with it, but somehow it looks a lot thicker and taller than mine. Mine seems to go deeper into the compresor pulley grove.

 

Thank you for feedback and input. Before I replace the compressor, I am most curious to find out why it would seize up in the first place.

And yes, the belt was an original Porsche belt.

 

I would of thought the compressor would give up first and generate the heat as the clutch was engaged but could not turn, I have had something similar happen on a bmw, but in that case the end plate basically broke and flew all over the engine bay (twisted metal then jambed the other belt and the car stopped)

that was the compressor seasing up