Recharge AC Freon

Contrary to popular belief, the refrigerant (Freon) in your car's air conditioning system does not ever wear out, evaporate, or lose any kind of "potency", when it is in a system without any leaks. Therefore the only reason your car's air conditioner will ever need to be recharged is if some of the refrigerant has leaked out. Of course, if there is a leak then it will need to be fixed before recharging the system. So, if you recharge your air conditioner without fixing the reason that caused it to run low, you are actually polluting the environment and damaging the most expensive part of your air conditioner, the compressor. Beware of people peddling bad information, especially on the Internet, and take advice from someone who has been working on car air conditioning systems for over 15 years.

The most common telltale sign of needing to find and fix a refrigerant leak in your car’s air conditioner is a bad smell that is similar to mildew. The mildew smell is what refrigerant smells like when it is released into the atmosphere. Cleaning the pipes, as the other article refers to, is not a cure for this problem because the refrigerant is in a sealed system and does not get contaminated in any way. If the refrigerant did become contaminated then it would cause instant major damage to the compressor. If you are getting a nasty smell out of the vents in your air conditioner, and there are no leaks in the sealed system then the problem is simply that the condensation drain is clogged up with the bacteria that live in dark, moist places. A simple fix for this is to put some bleach in the drain box to kill the bacteria, and your air conditioned air will come out of the vents smelling much better.

The most common place for a car air conditioner to leak is at an o-ring where 2 pipes are put together. Sometimes the o-ring is not properly lubricated when it is installed, and as the pipes flex under normal operation, the seal on the o-ring can be damaged causing a very slow leak. You can see evidence of a leak by looking at the spots where the pipes are joined together, and if there is an oily substance there, then that is a definite leak. You would have to fix that leak before recharging the system, or you will just have to keep charging it again, and again.

Also, if your air conditioner is not blowing as good as it once used to, then use a little bit of common sense and realize that since the air is cooled when it is blown through the coil that there is dust particles in the air and those particles do stick to the fins in the coil. Over time, the dust can eventually stop air from flowing through the coil making you think the system is low on refrigerant. The common sense should tell you that, just like the air conditioner in your house, those coils need to be cleaned from time to time.

So, when should you recharge your car’s air conditioner? Only after you have identified and repaired the leak that caused it to need recharging, in the first place. Any other time you are told to simply recharge the system; you are either getting bad information or you are getting ripped off. Be careful of people who just want to recharge your air conditioning system, because if they cannot identify the leak, then they might just leave you footing the bill for a compressor replacement, where the average charge for a job like that is in the neighborhood of nine hundred dollars. That is quite a bit of money considering you can buy an assortment of a dozen air conditioning o-rings for about three dollars.