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I've found tons of threads about "rough idles" but nothing pertaining to my problem.

Normally, without the A/C on, she is fine. Runs strong, is great, nothing wrong..

when I turn on the A/C, she becomes sluggish. I know that you'll lose power with the A/C on, but when I go to stop it's terrible. I have to shut off the A/C when I am going to stop or else the car will horribly idle. It'll jump for 850 RPMs down to (no joke) less then 100 RPM's. On one occasion she actually stalled on me.

The spark plugs have been replaced, and the air filter/throttle body are cleaned and good. Oil was changed a month ago, and so good there... and well, yeah.. don't know what could be causing it.

Thanks a lot everyone!!

Check your A/C compressor. There may be a problem with the pulley or something internal that's making it harder to turn. A Kinked line or other obstruction might make flow through the system harder causing the compressor to work harder.

wytbishop wrote:Check your A/C compressor. There may be a problem with the pulley or something internal that's making it harder to turn. A Kinked line or other obstruction might make flow through the system harder causing the compressor to work harder.

I'll check that in the morning.

I should have noted earlier that as far as the A/C goes, it is cold.. so yeah, it's just a bad idle, not like the A/C itself is bad..

A restriction in the flow of the refrigerant wouldn't necessarily be noticed in the effectiveness of the A/C. The fact that your air is still cold just means that the compressor is still turning, not that it's turning the way it should.

As far as other causes...it could still be an ignition thing that is only noticeable under load. It could be as simple as poor grounds or battery clamps.

I have the same issues with my 96 RS. It's cuz we don't have jack for power on the stock engine. I call the AC button my denitrousification button. It feels like you are pulling a semi when you hit the button. Mine has been like that since I got her with 56,000 kms on it. The solution is only using ac when driving downhill w/ the wind or getting more power.

RS_OBD'oh_2 wrote:I have the same issues with my 96 RS. It's cuz we don't have jack for power on the stock engine. I call the AC button my denitrousification button. It feels like you are pulling a semi when you hit the button. Mine has been like that since I got her with 56,000 kms on it. The solution is only using ac when driving downhill w/ the wind or getting more power.

dang.. and you don't know of any way to fix it?

I live in Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh to be exact) so i'm like.. on mountains.. always going up and down hills.. it's bad..

I'll check the compressor though.. and see what else I can find that could fix this problem =/

Yeah mine stalls sometimes at a stoplight with it going. I also think it's like said above, not much power to spare for the A/C to run