Went to the dealer for AC service

[MTL_4runner]

I decided not to wait to go to the US to top off the AC system and since the average person can't get a hold of R-134a up here in Canada (very, very frustrating!!!), I decided to bring it to the dealer. I mentioned that the FSM said that there should be very little bubbles in the sight glass with the compressor on and they said fine, they will check it out (which always scares me). I hope all they'll do is just evacuate the system and recharge with the correct weight of refriggerant. I'll know today when I go to pick up the truck after work.

[Lee]

dropping my truck off ANYWHERE makes me all butt hurt :(

i hate it. good luck man.

[MTL_4runner]

I hate it too, but they just have you by the ***** when working on AC stuff up here.
I have the gauges and everything, but I couldn't get any refrigerant without a license. :(
Hopefully they did what I asked and I won't have to unleash any fury when I pick up the truck. :laugh:

[BennyTRD]

There's stuff I do to my vehicle's maintenence wise, and theres stuff I leave to others. This falls into the "Other" category. Refridgerant oil can seriously damage your eyes if you get it in there. Shops have (or should have), all the proper equipment to do this safely.

When they recharge an AC system the first thing they do is empty all (or whats left), old refridgerant oil out of the system into a holding tank, or waste tank. Then hook up a vacumm and get all the moisture and humidity out of the system, which usually takes up to an hour. Them release the appropriate amount of refridgerant oil back into the hot line when the compressor is pumping. They also have a very expensive tool (made by Blue Point), that they use to to test around the vents from inside the car, to make sure that the refridgerant stays in the system and you have to leaks anywhere. There is a evaporator in the dash somewhere that helps to keep the moisture out of the refridgerant. Usually if your system hasn't been on for a while, the seals on the evaporator are dry and will leak for a minute untill they get lubricated and seal properly again.

I'm not sure what the dealer is going to charge you Jamie but, the guy who I usually get to do my systems, charges me $100 for the Refridgerant and labor. But he is also they guy who does my alignments and balancing.

[MTL_4runner]

My AC didn't appear to be leaking at all other than perhaps a small amount which permeated through the hoses over 10 years (I have never had anyone touch the AC in the 4runner and it still worked fine when I dropped it off). I did see some bubbles in the sight glass as I mentioned and the presure may have been a tiny bit low (via the gauges.....it's very hard to tell what is actually in there unless you completely evacuate the system and recharge it by weight as Ben mentioned). If I was in the US I probably would have been able to top off the system with about $1 worth of refrigerant and be set for another 10 years, but you just can't do that on this side of the border, unfortunately. If I escape for $100 or less and I see no bubbles in the sight glass (while the compressor is on full) I will be a happy camper. I wish we had good small shops around here, but I have yet to find any that I would consider competent enough for me to trust my vehcile with (yes, I admit I am a total control freak about other people working on my vehicles :king: ).

[MTL_4runner]

Ok, I got the truck back from the dealer and was actually pretty pleasantly surprised. They did exactly what I asked, evacuated the system and recovered 0.42 KG (0.92 lbs) of regrigerant. Then held a vacuum for 1/2 an hour and recharged the system with 0.70 KG (1.54 lbs) of refrigerant. They also added fresh oil and fuorescent dye just in case I develop a leak later. Before the service, the temp drop was about 17 degrees C, but after I got a full 30+ degrees C of temp drop (inlet vs outlet)! I would also note that the sight glass has absolutely no bubbles at all while the compressor is running! The mechanic I talked to at the dealer also said a fully charged system should never see bubbles in the sight glass as long as the temps are below 95 degrees. Overall it made a huge difference and I didn't know how bad it had gotten until I drove the truck on the way home with the AC cranked and nearly froze my cheeks off. The total service ran me $140 CDN (taxes in), but it was well worth it after seeing the result. Just thought I'd pass this info along for others to use. :thumbup:

[Badlands]

Hey MTL_4runner,

What dealer did you go to to get it done?...always good to know a dealer or garages that do decent work and knows their stuff?

Give 'em a plug.

-B

[rocktown]

I feel bad for all of you who have to pay for getting the refrigerant recharged. My buddy is a bmw tech and he snuck me into the shop last week to recharge my ac. It was extremely low, about .16 pounds of refrigerant. He drained out the system for roughly half hour and filled it back up to the 1.54 pound mark withing 5 min. I couldn't believe how easy the process was, and i still dont understand how anyone can charge so much for this kind of service

[MTL_4runner]

I feel bad for all of you who have to pay for getting the refrigerant recharged. My buddy is a BMW tech and he snuck me into the shop last week to recharge my ac. It was extremely low, about .16 pounds of refrigerant. He drained out the system for roughly half hour and filled it back up to the 1.54 pound mark withing 5 min. I couldn't believe how easy the process was, and i still don't understand how anyone can charge so much for this kind of service


I used to work as a professional mechanic so you can imagine how much it burns me up to pay that much for the service (a 30 lb bottle of R-134a is less than $100 wholesale and retails for about $150). Most systems would use less than 2 lbs (about $10 retail) of refrigerant, it takes no man time to work the machine (just set it to auto evac, then tell it the amount to recharge and hit go).....so what's the rest for? Yep, AC work is a good biz.....even better in Canada because the average Joe can't even work on it even if they wanted to.

Now that being said, the recovery/recharge machine that mechanics have is better than just doing it yourself since you should have a set of manifold gauges, digital scale (to weigh the amount of refrigerant used) and a vacuum pump to do it properly. The other thing people forget to do is to purge the manifold lines of air before introducing the refrigerant (if you don't you can get air or water vapor in the system which is NG). So most people, despite the high price for the service, would be better off just paying up to have it done properly. Having a friend in the biz certainly is nice though!

[MTL_4runner]

Here's some pics of how the the AC guages get hooked up:

High and low side hookup
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/mtl_4runner/AC%20check/4runnerACcheck001Large.jpg

You can see the low side should be higher (more like 45-50 psi)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/mtl_4runner/AC%20check/4runnerACcheck002Large.jpg

[xonetruthcrewx]

Lucky for me, i have a friend that has the exact setup picture above. I bought the oil and refrigerant and thats that. He did it for free, so in the end i spent like 25 bucks for all the supplies.

Sucks you cant get r134-a in the Great White North. Hell, they even sell it at WalMart here. Haha.