By Warren McCord
Q:The air conditioner in my vehicle is not blowing cold air. My neighbor thinks it might just be low on refrigerant and wants me to let him top it off. He says it would save me a lot of money to do that first rather than take it to a shop for help. Does this make sense to you?
A: No. Even if your well-meaning neighbor is able to put refrigerant into the system and it begins to blow cold air, it will only be a temporary fix. The air-conditioning system should not be losing refrigerant in the first place. If it is leaking refrigerant, not only will the system stop working again soon, but you will be polluting the environment with the toxic refrigerant. That is the least damaging outcome.
The greatest risk is that if the wrong refrigerant is added to your system, the system will become contaminated. For a professional to repair the cause of the leak, the contaminated refrigerant will need to be recovered and disposed of as hazardous waste, at an additional fee. If too much refrigerant is put into the system, components can be damaged, adding yet another expense. The result is that you could now have contaminated refrigerant and damaged components in your A/C system – and still no cold air.
A/C systems are complicated and expensive. Equipment needed to perform repairs is also expensive. It is important to know that there are only two approved refrigerants for vehicle A/C systems (R-12 and R-134), but there are others on the market that claim to be OK. It is just not so. It is also important to know that R-12 and R-134 should not be mixed together – only one or the other should be used in the same vehicle.
There are many reasons why an A/C may not be working correctly besides a lack of refrigerant. It can be anything from computer controls to sensors. The most cost-effective way to get a malfunctioning A/C system working as it should is to take your car to a qualified technician with the proper equipment and education to determine the cause of the problem, then repair it correctly – with a warranty to back it up.
Warren McCord is an ASE certified master technician and owner of Dean’s Automotive Inc., 2037 Old Middlefield Way, Mountain View. For more information, call 961-0302 or e-mail McCord at djmccord@att.net.
