Do You Have To Use A Recovery Machine When Repairing Car Ac

Over time, a auto's air-conditioning system will begin exist less and less effective, until the day when you turn the knob and all it spits at you lot as you lot roast in the summer heat are tepid, warm gusts. You tin fix this, but having your A/C recharged generally runs a few hundred bucks, and the practise-it-yourself cans have bad reputations from years of dodgy ingredients.

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DuPont 3 Cans R-134a Suva A/C Automotive Refrigerant/Freon R134a (12oz Cans)

If yous like the classics and your auto is pre-1994, yous're faced with the even bigger nib of converting your system from the out-of-favor R12 Freon refrigerant to the current widespread standard R134a, and that means hours of expensive store labor to changeover a bunch of lilliputian rubber seals.

Naturally, people have tried to figure out shortcuts to save money during this process. Below are a few of the questions and myths on anybody's mind when faced with a hefty recharging bill or heftier conversion bill, and about are bad news for the wallet.

How much refrigerant leakage is normal?

An A/C system is not airtight, says Ward Atkinson, an ac expert with the Order of Automotive Engineers. It can be nearly closed, but refrigerant is always trying to push its mode out and float away into the air. Refrigerant is a liquid when pressurized inside your car's A/C system, but it leaks out as a colorless gas. You won't see it or hear information technology when information technology happens.

R134a systems don't leak as much as the old systems did back in the R12 days, but the SAE says the average model twelvemonth 2022 car leaks 0.41 ounces of refrigerant per year. Information technology'southward a large improvement from 2001, when the European Union estimated the cars congenital that yr leaked an average of 2.36 ounces per year.

Will it hurt to keep running an A/C arrangement that blows warm air?

Yep. Past the time you lot observe the system is blowing warm, information technology'south already lost a lot of refrigerant. More importantly, refrigerant is mixed with a lubricating oil, needed to keep the A/C compressor operating smoothly, you're likely running the system as well dry, which can eventually burn out the compressor by starving it of lubrication. Most refrigerants mix in an ultraviolet-sensitive dye, and so while the refrigerant evaporates away, the oil/dye mixture leaks into the engine bay and leaves a traceable stain. Waving an ultraviolet light nigh the A/C lines will evidence where the leak is.

Volition refitting my R12 system to use R134a refrigerant make it less effective?

Noticeably. That's the virtually accurate answer we tin can give yous without knowing your machine'south particular cooling system, because they tin vary a lot. R12 systems weren't designed for anything just R12, so if you're converting one to R134a, so you lot have to put in about 25 percent less refrigerant to account for R134a's higher operating pressure. R134a is a more efficient refrigerant pound for pound, says Griffiths, a Porsche air conditioning specialist, only you tin can't put every bit much in your car's A/C organization as you could R12, so the end result is diminished cooling power.

Is information technology true that y'all when you become your A/C system recharged, you could be getting used refrigerant that was sucked out of the erstwhile car?

Yep, but there's nothing incorrect with it. Shops will run the approachable refrigerant through a recovery machine that scrubs it of contaminants like dirt, and it works just besides later on it's clean. It doesn't get sour or lose effectiveness with age the mode break fluid or coolant does.

"In that location's still plenty of virgin R12 around"

So although you may be paying for 22 fluid ounces of "new" R134a, a portion of that could just be your old refrigerant cleaned up and resold dorsum to you, some other car'south onetime refrigerant. But yous wouldn't know the difference or feel any downside if you didn't know near it.

Practise they nevertheless make precious, icy-cold R12 Freon?

Industry was banned in most countries betwixt 1996 and 2010, including in the U.Due south., but that doesn't mean it's gone. You tin purchase it, but the federal Make clean Air Act says you have to be a certified technician. In practice, you can detect it for sale past gearheads who hoard it. But then, if you're an amateur opening up the A/C system to recharge it, y'all're releasing whatever's left of the old refrigerant into the air, and that makes y'all the kind of jackass Captain Planet warned us about.

Also, people lie about what's in the can. They might say information technology's R12, only who really knows. Any decent A/C shop will be able to buy legit R12 for you and recharge your organisation the correct way. "At that place's still plenty of virgin R12 around," says Candido "Candy" Figueroa, of Miami's Car A/C World. "It is very expensive, and nosotros only use information technology on cars that are going to be judged." Await to spend at least $200-300 for a couple of cans and labor, although that'south hundreds of dollars cheaper than converting to less-constructive R134a.

Is it true those refill-it-yourself cans that say they're R12a or an R134a replacement are really a cruddy old mix containing butane and propane?

Combustible hydrocarbons such as butane and propane are illegal for retrofitting into air conditioning systems because the EPA frowns on immolation. Brands such equally Hot Shot and Freeze 12 take their own formulas that don't include butane or propane, but Figueroa isn't a fan of any DIY cans. They often have stop-leak mixed in with them, typically an additive of metallic filings or pellets that react to moisture and oxygen to gum up a leak in an A/C system. But the additive reacts with moisture anywhere in the system and not just as the leak signal, and so it can clog up a whole arrangement. "Don't use it," says Atkinson, every bit DIY cans also don't include any equipment to avert venting refrigerant into the air.

Will your A/C system go kaput if yous don't drain out all the one-time refrigerant offset?

Information technology could. R12 and R134a operate at different pressures, and then mixing too much of them creates a organization operating at a weird pressure. Besides, R12's mixed-in lubricant is mineral oil, and R134a'due south is a synthetic polyalkylene glycol (PAG) oil, and they don't play well together if combined. Any shop worth your money will vacuum out all the old R12 earlier converting the arrangement and filling it with R134a.

Do you really demand to supervene upon the condenser and compressor when you catechumen an older car to R134a?

Sometimes. Certain cars' condensers, if made for R12, don't accept the chapters needed to reduce high-side pressure when R134a is installed, says Atkinson. Usually, your old condenser volition work fine with R134a. Your A/C shop tin can tell you if it won't. You practice have to replace all the seals in the compressor, though. PAG oil tin can fail system seals and hoses designed for R12's mineral oil, then that's where nearly of your labor costs come from on a conversion to R134a.

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Chemours DuPont Suva 134a Refrigerant, 12 oz., Pack of 12

Tin you actually use computer keyboard squeegee (R152a) to run your A/C system for cheap?

In theory—until it blows up and y'all're penciling in eyebrows over your face. R-152a is an extremely flammable hydrocarbon gas, just as propane is a hydrocarbon. Atkinson has a drove of photographs of dashboard fires from people who've recharged their not-R152a systems with R-152a, and he says considering the blower is pushing air out the dashboard vents when things light up, the flames tend to become blown back at the passengers. OEMs are already searching for an R-134a replacement, and R-152a is one they're experimenting with, but information technology's not a good idea for your old R-12 or R-134a system.

After all, ac is pointless if it sets yous on burn down, because and so you're hotter than always.

Matthew Jancer Matt Jancer is a Southern-based automotive and outdoors writer. If he isn't outside getting swarmed by things or asking animals to stay even so for photos, you'll find him on the side of the road under the hood of an old automobile, yanking apart emissions equipment and blasphemous.