I have a 94 XJ6 (XJ40) with the 4.0l 6 cylinder. The AC blows, but not cold. It gets colder at highway speeds, but never really cold. I bought the r-134 with a guage, and the system appears charged. There is a bit of a squeal sometimes when you first turn on the AC, but it goes away in a minute or so. Is it worth having the system evacuated and recharged or am I better off just replacing the compressor and starting from there? Thanks again to all the techs who take their time to help out us jag owners!

 

That's one for an experienced tech to take a look at. As an example, the compressor squeal could be because the system is overcharged, and the lack of efficiency because the expansion valve is not correctly metering refrigerant flow. Not a good time to be taking expensive shots in the dark.

 

A good AC tech should be consulted. Based on the improvement in cooling at highway speed, which may be due to the increased air flow over the condenser, the condenser may be lacking efficiency. The condenser may need to be replaced. But the proper tests with a gauge set should be done as well. Evacuating and recharging would not make sense unless you failed to use a vacuum pump the first time it was recharged and you wanted to make sure all air and moisture was removed from the system by doing a thorough vacuum pumping. But even then, evac and recharge alone would probably not fix this problem.

The condenser is one possibility, but lack of cooling must be diagnosed. We don't have enough data to make a full recommendation just based on the symptoms described.