So I got a new car some weeks ago. It's a Renault/Dacia Duster 2021. During the past week I took it on a long trip and reached the first 1000 km. During that trip I started noticing a clicking sound on the left side of the dash (left of the wheel, below the air vent and around the side mirror controls) after I had the AC on for about 1.5-2 hours. It's not a continuous sound, nor is it loud, more like a switch turning on and off at regular intervals. Something like this:
click - 4s - clack - 10s - click - 4s - clack - 10s
Wish I could show you a video but I haven't been able to catch it, and it might be hard for the microphone to capture it even.
Weird thing is that it can start or stop happening on temperature changes. For example when having the AC and air recirculation on and then turning off both it started happening. Another time I had both AC and air recirculation on with the clicking going on and then opened the windows for a bit and it stopped.
I've been reading and I'm not sure if it's normal or not. Read about the thermostat shutting off the compressor on and off under high loads on the motor but I wasn't going particularly hard on it. Thought it was maybe the temperature but it happens on both 17 degrees (lowest) or 23 degrees (Celsius). I'm used to a 2014 car and this one has a bunch of tech stuff going on so it might be an issue with indoor temperature and outdoor temperature difference confusing the HVAC system somehow?
Good thing is that the dealership includes a check up at the 1000km mark so I will be talking to them about it. But I still wanted to have a better idea of what could be going on. It seems to me this may require removing the dash so they might be bit reluctant on checking it since it's something not critical.
