Air con regas

[John B]

Hi has anyone ever used the home DIY aircon re gas kit's? ? Cheers

 

[macabethiel]

TBH I do not think it's worth the cost.
You need to have your system tested for integrity first and if you have a leak many places will not charge you as a re-gas is pointless if its leaking.

Not to mention the environmental aspects. Garages who do re-gas should only used trained / authorised people and there are potential dangers when handling gas at pressure.

 

[Banshee]

TBH I do not think it's worth the cost.
You need to have your system tested for integrity first and if you have a leak many places will not charge you as a re-gas is pointless if its leaking.

Not to mention the environmental aspects. Garages who do re-gas should only used trained / authorised people and there are potential dangers when handling gas at pressure.

I was going to buy one from Halfords and was advised against it as the guy came out and tested it and said he could confirm there were no leaks but the amount that was in the canister wouldn't have re-charged the system enough.

I'm stumped now, I can't really find anyone mobile that changes a reasonable price for a re-gas :nenau

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

I used them a couple of times in the old days on my Volvo's, and they did work...

But....

They rely on the compressor pulling in the gas, and I have heard that it is possible to over pressurise the system very easily with them. The other problem is, when you add the gas, you may also need to add lubricant, but you have no idea how much lubricant has been lost, in relation to the easier to loose gas, so the topping up becomes total guess work.

Also as already mentioned, the professional systems, evacuate the system, removing any air that may have got in, and the oil as well, before pressurising with the correct gas/oil ratio, which results in there being less chance of damp in the system, and therefore, helps the pump have a longer life.

On my V70, the first couple of times I had it done, it was by a mobile aircon guy, who effectively just had bigger gas cylinders, and relied on the aircon pump to draw the gas in. He put the cylinder on a set of scales and weighed in the gas.. When his company folded, I ended up taking it to Halfords, and getting them to do it on one of their automated machines, and I have to say the aircon worked a lot better. I have had the T2 re-gassed twice now, both times on one of the machines, and it works perfectly.

Personally, I think for the money and hassle, it's worth the little extra to get it done properly, and have the knowledge that the system has been checked for leaks at the same time.

 

[Mobieus_uk]

kwik fit or similar, they have the right equipment and some form of guarantee as well, just had mine done but it leaked so went straight back and they retested again and found no leaks so must have been on the connecting points that the machine connects to, so for me 2 refills for the price of one cant be bad

 

[micktheshed]

I've use the Halfords kit successfully several times on my 2003 Astra. it's necessary to purchase a gauge as well as the gas canister, but this fully re-useable & means you can check the system pressure at any time. This saved me the trouble of having the Terrano done as it leaks like a sieve & has no pressure at all due to collision damage. Due to the cost of components I'll stick to opening the windows LOL.

Note that the A/C system will still benefit from professional re-pressurising every few years as there is no way of telling what mixture is actually required.

 

[johnb5177]

A/C has always been a mystery to me, and a concern, in that I'm not sure how effective mine actually is....:nenau

I sometimes think it's throwing out warm air when it should be a lot cooler.
Perhaps I should get it checked when I'm back in UK, there's a Nissan specialist (not main agent) in Swansea.

 

[macabethiel]

A/C has always been a mystery to me ?.

It's just a fridge. Coolant liquid used to be Frion but now it's something environmentally friendly.

As liquid vapourises in the evaporator latent heat of vapourisation gets its heat from warm air in your heater causing temperature drop - cooling.

Your aircon pump pressurises the vapour back into a liquid that is sent to the evaporator again to cool the air again in the heat exchanger. Simples lol

 

[solarman216]

Just to clarify, motors use 134a this is a mixture of more than one gas and as a gas/vapor it stratifies, as a liquid it does not, so if your system has lost gas but is not empty, it needs to be emptied and vacced down on order to have pure 134a in the system, the vacing is very important as the lube oil absorbs gas and at atmospheric pressure can take a long time to give up all its gas, under high vac for half an hour should get it all out, regards lube oil if this is lost then as with all oil leaks you should see evidence of it, no evidence then assume oil is OK, I have some large 3 phase AC units that I look after and if one lost gas I have no choice but to vac down and do a complete recharge or I will end up with more of one component of the gas mix than would be good, Rick

 

[johnb5177]

It's just a fridge. Coolant liquid used to be Frion but now it's something environmentally friendly.

As liquid vapourises in the evaporator latent heat of vapourisation gets its heat from warm air in your heater causing temperature drop - cooling.

Your aircon pump pressurises the vapour back into a liquid that is sent to the evaporator again to cool the air again in the heat exchanger. Simples lol

Thanks for that very clear explanation........it is no longer a mystery.....:thumb2

I still think mine needs checking......

 

[jims-terrano]

Neither of my current Terrano Ac systems work but on my 05 plate was working fine but to be honest not really efficient, there was nothing wrong with it just not particularly good. Other cars including my current Skoda really do chill down and do get very cold so may be you are expecting too much from it in high temps in Europe at the moment, just a thought. Don't get me wrong my 05 plate AC did cool and was nice but don't think it was as good as other cars.

Actually another thought is the pollen filter, when was it last replaced? They do block up with tiny particles of dust. There's a download explaining how to replace the filter and it's dead easy to do. It doesn't half cut the air flow when it's blocked, for the cost of it I'd get it replaced.

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

Neither of my current Terrano Ac systems work but on my 05 plate was working fine but to be honest not really efficient, there was nothing wrong with it just not particularly good. Other cars including my current Skoda really do chill down and do get very cold so may be you are expecting too much from it in high temps in Europe at the moment, just a thought. Don't get me wrong my 05 plate AC did cool and was nice but don't think it was as good as other cars.

Actually another thought is the pollen filter, when was it last replaced? They do block up with tiny particles of dust. There's a download explaining how to replace the filter and it's dead easy to do. It doesn't half cut the air flow when it's blocked, for the cost of it I'd get it replaced.

Surely if you are using the aircon correctly and have it on "recirculation" the air is not going through the pollen filter?

I found that just before the gas level gets to low it seems to work less well, but once re gassed it really does chill the car down and often we have to turn it off on long motorway journeys as the car gets too cold.

The air coming out the top vents is at 7degrees on a hot day with the car on tickover.

Sent from my SM-T705 using Tapatalk

 

[jims-terrano]

Got to say clive Common sense you would think that filter only filters air coming in but have to say Im not 100% sure about that, think about where the filter is located and then think about where the flap actually is. I wouldn't be surprised if the filter is filtering the air flow after the recirc flap.

The other point is you can run the AC without having the recirc on. My Skoda will switch to recirc only when the heater is completely off and the direction is to the centre vents and it does that automatically.

You can set the controls how ever you like to make it comfortable for you. The point I was making is that if the pollen filter is blocked it does reduce the air flow significantly. John B didn't say whether he had it set to recirc. I have a spare airbox in the garage, if I remember I'll take a look to see if the recirc by passes the filter.

I still don't beleive that the Terrano AC is as efficient as other vehicles that I've driven. My experience of Terrano AC comes from two Terranos and I doubt both were faulty.