It’s 2010 Yaris. It’s a sunny humid day about 90 degrees. The readings on the gauge are 85-90 on the low and 150 on the high with the car and AC off.
once AC is on, reads 40 on low and the high does not budge remaining at 150.
my guess is compressor is not compressing. Any thoughts?
any answer is appreciated
With the AC off for several minutes the static pressure should be the same on both high and low sides. If not that suggests there is a blockage somewhere. Was sealer ever introduced into that AC system?
Suction side is about right for those conditions, but the high side is not going anywhere. As far as the compressor, that is a variable-displacement compressor with a computer-operated control valve. The compressor could be perfectly good but the electronics not doing the right thing. You would need a professional-grade bidirectional scan tool to troubleshoot it.
Thank you for that information. As a follow up, I went to vacuum the system and noticed no Freon came out, only air. So I imagine I have a leak. Also during the vacuum, the low side isn’t falling below 8 psi. It’s frozen there. So is it safe to say that it’s a leak?
Obviously if there's no refrigerant in there you have a pretty big leak to deal with. I'd expect though if the system were empty you'd have zero pressure.