I bought my car in November 2014 and from day-one the AC doesn't seem to work very well. In the winter when it's set to defrost the windshield, there is a lot of fog build up on the glass, and the air seems more moist than any air conditioned car I've owned before.
On the first oil change my wife mentioned it to the dealer. The mechanic told her that the AC should be turned off when using defrost. Unfortunately I wasn't there to argue the point, but this is even contradicted in the manual. From what I see with the condenser fan activity, the AC can't even be turned off when defrost is used: it's turned on automatically. They said they did a charge test and found nothing unusual. I was skeptical they did a charge-test though.
On my most recent oil change I mentioned it again. This time, before the service appointment I ran a short tiny aluminum wire (about 1 cm long) between the AC service port caps and pipes (for both the low and high pressure service port caps) as a sort of tamper-indicator.
This time when my wife picked it up, they again said they did a charge test and found nothing wrong. They told her she should make sure the re-circulation button is on, and to dry-out the floor mats, saying they were damp from winter wear. Similar to before, re-circulation should be turned off when defrosting. More importantly, the tell-tale wires were still fixed in place.
The warranty service sheet says they checked the AC charge.
Is there any way an AC charge can be tested without using the service ports?
