Blower motor and/or resistor would be my first check. If replacing one, good time to replace the other for an XC90 with high miles. VIDA might show an indication of this.

 

How old is the battery?
Have you had the electrical system tested recently?
Any other electrical issues? How's the headlights?

 

Sounds like your evaporator is freezing up. Turning the AC off allows it to thaw out, restoring airflow. The most likely cause is the system has a small leak and is now undercharged. The cheap way out, at least temporarily, is to get a can of R134a with a gauge and add some refrigerant. If the leak stays small you can get away for a long time by adding a little every once in a while.

 

This seems like exactly what happened. I saw another post on a volv forum where a person had the same symptom. I’m going to give the measure/recharge a shot.

 

After another 10 min, I flipped the ac on- works great.

anyone have words of wisdom?

A few years ago there were many complaints - of evaporator freezing up symptoms in the newer cars. I believe Volvo solved it with a software change - something that kept the compressor off more (to prevent the evaporator freezing up)

 

Very interesting. Do you have any more info on this update? / do you know if it affected any pre-2016 xc90’s?

 

@lasagna-glass Sounds like you got a few good common things to check for with it stopping blowing cold and the high amount of noise from the blower area.

 

If you don't want to spend the money for the recharge kit without proof, find (borrow from Autozone) a set of AC gauges and measure the low side pressure of your system while running. If it's less than 35psi that's your problem. If it's close to 35 that could be the problem, depending on the ambient temperature.

 

Hi all-

About an hour into a road trip, the ac (set to coldest on both sides) with fan quite high, fresh air set to auto, basically stopped blowing cold, and the air coming out of the vents really slowed down along with a high amount of noise coming from the blower fan area. I turned the ac off and over the course of about 5-10 min, the air coming out of the vents increased back to normal.

After another 10 min, I flipped the ac on- works great. In the meantime, I’m setting the temp to something comfortable, but not full cold, and I turned the air circulator to manually on.

anyone have words of wisdom?

Edit 7/24:

I finally got around to digging into this. After reading up on the issue some more, I decided to try replacing the likely aging ac control valve rather than replacing the compressor. I bought a cheap ish one on Amazon, and had a shop evac the Freon. Surprisingly, the shop said the levels were at 1.5 pounds (non-dual ac) rather than the 2.2 lbs listed for xc90’s with dual ac as mine does.
https://jewelcars.co.uk/gatwick-taxi-with-child-seats
So I replaced the valve (fairly easy to do- take the extra 5 minutes to remove the air box- makes the job a lot easier) put 2.2 lbs in and the ac works much better than it did before- especially at idle. Going on a road trip on Friday so we’ll see how that one goes.

Took a couple long trips recently my air conditioning stops blowing hard cold air just trickles out no matter fan speed after about 1.5 hours of driving then when I park and shut it off for a little bit and it’s back to normal for another hour or so and repeats the issue any idea what’s going on?

 

Your evaporator is freezing up. Ice forms and blocks the flow of air. Car off, ice melts and everyone is happy again.

Ice will form if the evaporator is too cold - and that can have many causes. Generally it's not low freon in modern cars - unless the low pressure sensor (if equipped) or evap temp sensor (if equipped) are not working properly. And even if the AC is fully charged a bad sensor can keep the compressor on too long causing freezing.

 

But checking the pressure is easy. If the low side is too low, like less than 30 psi, the evaporator will be below freezing.