Starcool Closed

[wander]

I had my van in an auto air shop, today, to have some work done. The shop called me and said they called Starcool and was told they have permenantly closed their doors. News to me.

[Scalf77]

Yes, I don't believe that Danhard Inc has had anything to do with Starcool for quite some time. The rights were always owned by Sportsmobile anyway.

-greg

[arctictraveller]

Originally Posted by wander

I had my van in an auto air shop, today, to have some work done. The shop called me and said they called Starcool and was told they have permenantly closed their doors. News to me.

That doesn't mean it can't be fixed, Starcool didn't manufacture the compressor or other related parts, but even if they did, a different compressor, evaporator, fan or what ever can be substituted.

[wander]

I don't think the issue is with the system, but with how I'm operating it. When driving, it puts out nice cold air, but when hooked up to shore power, it doesn't work at all. In the photo below, there's a switch above "STARCOOL," to the right of the "HEAT-COOL-OFF" switch. I'm not sure where this switch is supposed to be set.

There is a Starcool breaker in the circuit breaker panel, which I have on.

[BrianW]

The “switch” on the bottom right adjusts the set temperature to turn the AC on or off at a certain temp. It’s a slider switch that controls the setting in the clear window above that shows temp. The AC won’t turn on unless 1) the bottom left switch is set to “cool” and 2) the temp setting for the AC is lower than the ambient temp in the van. In your pic it looks like the AC “on” temp is set at 60 degrees but the actual temp being read is 55 degrees. Therefore the AC won’t turn on until the ambient inside temp goes above 60. (Well, the system is also set to “off,” so there’s that, too.) if the actual temp was higher than 55 then your thermostat may be bad.

[wander]

Originally Posted by BrianW

The “switch” on the bottom right adjusts the set temperature to turn the AC on or off at a certain temp. It’s a slider switch that controls the setting in the clear window above that shows temp. The AC won’t turn on unless 1) the bottom left switch is set to “cool” and 2) the temp setting for the AC is lower than the ambient temp in the van. In your pic it looks like the AC “on” temp is set at 60 degrees but the actual temp being read is 55 degrees. Therefore the AC won’t turn on until the ambient inside temp goes above 60. (Well, the system is also set to “off,” so there’s that, too.) if the actual temp was higher than 55 then your thermostat may be bad.

Thank you for your reply BrianW. The switch on the bottom right is a two-position toggle switch. The other switch is on OFF because I'm not trying to use the system. I took this picture to show the location of the switches in question. The thermostat temperature slider is on top of the thermostat.

Good catch on the actual temperature reading. My garage is air conditioned, but no way can it be 55F. Thanks!

[BrianW]

The bottom right is a toggle switch? Sorry, thought it was the temp slider. I sold my 98 with Starcool 2 years ago and my new SMB doesn’t have it, so I was going by memory.

[gahamby]

Check the fan under the drivers side just behind the footwell. They get jammed up with road debris and seize. Also check the fuses associated with the fan and compressor.

[daveb]

I had rocks jam my aux condenser fan. I also had issues with the electric radiator fan not kicking on, which IIRC, made a big difference on the shore power compressor but only slightly effected the dash AC when the vehicle was at idle. I've also noticed a low refrigerant level seemed to affect the shore power compressor more than the dash AC system. Lastly, I had the solenoid that ties into the stock system fail. I just don't recall if it effected the dash system at all. It was a long time ago.
BTW I can hear the shore power compressor kick in when adjusting the thermostat and I'm assuming you are hearing it kick in?

[wander]

Thanks for the responses. I'll check the fan, compressor and fuse.