My wife's new beetle a/c just quit working the other day. I started looking at it and noticed the ac clutch is not kicking on. I did some research on this wonderful site and I checked the fuses on top of the battery and they are good. Nothing looks blown or anything. Every few seconds, the engine idle will change like the compressor is kicking on, however the compressor never kicks on. The low side of ac system pegs out my manifold gauges so I know the system has pressure. The small fan, the ac cooling fan comes on when you turn the a/c on and turns off when you turn the ac off. The wiring at the a/c compressor is showing 4.50 volts however when you turn the a/c on the engine idle surges like the compressor is kicking on (even though it isn't) but when the engine surge happens the voltages spikes up to 7.00 volts.
I looked at the larger radiator cooling fan and tried to spin it because it looked crooked. I couldn't spin the fan at all. It was like wedged against the housing. I managed to pull it free and get it so it will spin by hand. I noticed the fan blades itself which the plastic is warped when you spin it. So what happened was the blades of the fan were warped, the fan jammed up and wouldn't spin. Even after freeing the fan, I let the car warm up to operating temperature with the ac off and the small ac cooling fan was kicking on and off I assume because it knows the large fan isn't working. The fuse for the fan appears to be good still. Do you think the fan itself burned up and would this cause the ac compressor to not kick on?
