I've had a 1994 960 for a few months, and really like it. Many of you have helped me out with what few problems I've had. Thank you so much.

It seems that the beast will sacrifice air conditioning for power. Whenever I am accelerating -- even moderately -- the A/C cuts way back and only comes out the floor vents. When cruising or decelerating, the A/C fires up great.

Is this normal, or is something wrong?

Marc:

I'm willing to bet that your 960 is different enough from my '94 940 (B230FT) that the same fix won't apply, but I'll post anyway just in case. On mine (with exactly the same problem), a tiny hard plastic vacuum line coming from the driver's side of the firewall about half way down had come loose from where it belonged on what looks like a vacuum valve. This is right in the area of the engine oil dipstick tube. The short length of rubber hose holding it on the valve fitting had cracked. New piece of rubber tubing and voila, no more loss of A/C from vents on acceleration.

Yeah, Mine too! Check out my work... I found that My 86 760 wagon has a vacum pump that kicks in when the vacum drops... Mine is Turbo tho... maybe that will help?

Also, what I did before pulling anything apart was to disconnect the vacum diaphrams and plug them then try it... to help me isolate if there was a problem with them... They all checked out so I had to look elswhere...

yeah, it is a vacum problem.... At first I thought the same thing... that the AC would cut to help the Engine... not...

Karl

It's your vacuum motor for the floor/vent deflector. This is widely discussed in the archives.

Three choices:

1. Fix it RIGHT, 8-10 hours to pull dashboard apart.

2. Fix it by CHEATING. Involves cutting a small, patchable access hole. ~2 hours

3. Plug off the vacuum source, you will never get air to the floor, but it will never fail at the vents.

Part is $50 bux.