Damn low pressure/inlet wouldn’t seal after a year. Note, do not use the Horror Freight gauge set more than once. I was hawking over my car with a helper fan dyno style checking 4 values (coolant temp). It’s having precise ambient temp/humidity and fill amounts measured precisely, with vent temps that confirm your ambient/fill/vent temp numbers IF you can trust the chart. This is good news for shops because the days of DIY A/C repair in a can are numbered.Drawing vacuum for a period of time and then filling after the oil is in is not a hard thing to do. This paragraph caught my eye from this article:ĭon’t worry, R-12 and R-134a will not be phased out, but they will be regulated and taxed heavily. Unless all the A/C shops decide to keep duplicate systems. It's supposed to become mandated in 2021 models, and expect a lot of people to be shocked on what an A/C service will cost them.Īnd once the shops all convert to the new equipment, trying to get your R134a system serviced will become more expensive as well. It's ironic indeed that they named it what they did. At $5.00 a can for R134a that comes to $65 so the new YF1234 stuff works out to something on the order of 15 times more expensive. Daimler will add an underhood "fire extinguisher"-an argon gas canister with spray lines directed at all parts that its engineers say might become hot enough for a leaking refrigerant to ignite.įor example, here's a 160 oz or the equivalent of 13-12oz cans of the stuff. However, no rollout schedule has been announced. In the meantime, Daimler, which had charged that the alternative refrigerant R-1234yf posed potential fire safety dangers, has finally agreed to use R-1234yf systems in its Mercedes vehicles for markets where the refrigerant either is mandated or is effectively pressed for by regulatory bodies (as in the U.S.). It's also incompatable with the current machines that shops are now using, so they will have to buy all new equipment, and you are going to help pay for that with increased rates.Īdditionally, it's flammable and Mercedes is outfitting some of their cars with an Argon Fire Supression system to put out any fires that might start after a collision. The new systems come with YF1234 and it is incompatable with R134a and it costs a lot more as well. If you need it you would be wise to stock up. I've retrofitted my '91 BMW 318is to 134a, and kept three of my own other cars running with 134a, and picked up some nice wine and scotch charging and trouble-shooting friends systems. The trick is getting a chart for your car that plots temp and humidity vs high and low side pressure. If it holds vacuum overnight I'm good to go, and add r134a from cans I buy at walmart. After making sure it holds pressure I vacuum the system with my pump, usually for 3-4 hr then let it sit overnight. When I have work to do I have the system evacuated by a shop (usually about $25), and then fill the system with nitrogen to test for leaks, using soapy water to find the leak. I had been frustrated by lack of decent work on my car a few years ago and happened to have just read Rob Siegels' " Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic." In addition to being highly entertaining, he has a chapter on automotive a/c that was inspiring (he's got an entire book on the subject coming out soon).īased on Rob's book and a little online digging, I bought a set of Mastercool 89661 gauges, a Robinaire 15500 vacuum pump, and a tank of nitrogen. Automotive a/c is entirely do-able as a DIYer.
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