Air Conditioning Problems

[stupenal]

Ok, since I'm a pelicanparts fan, and the other forums are full of lil kids, and i'm not particularly a fan of the roadfly setup, I'll post my question here. My air conditioning does not work. I forgot to test it when I bought my car in May. I had my mechanic take a look, and he told me that bmw ac is too finicky and to take it to a dealer. Now, I'm really afraid of the $tealership.....and I was hoping that all i needed to do is to recharge the system. However, since it blows NO COLD AIR whatsoever, and NEVER HAS, my mech said recharging would probably do no good. Anyone know what to do? SHould i just go ahead and get a recharge kit at walmart and do it myself? Or should i get an a/c pro to take a look?

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Stupenal,

The first thing I would suggest you do is find a book on A/C systems and read up. A/C is really not that difficult to understand, provided you take the time to understand the various components in the system.

What year is your car? All newer cars use a refrigerant called R-134a, older cars use R-12. It's important that you check what your car originally used. There should be a sticker on the A/C compressor that will tell you.

If the car used R-12, you will need to do one of two things, either convert your A/C system to run R-134a, or find an A/C shop that still has R-12. R-12 is expensive these days, usually around $30-60 a pound, and most modern A/C systems run 2 1/2 lbs in the system. Converting to R-134a means you have to replace every O-ring in the A/C system, and the compressor as well. Not to mention you will need to upgrade to a larger condensor as well for the A/C system to work properly, otherwise the coldest it will ever get is around 50-60 degrees. It will also be difficult to find space to put in a larger condensor.

So what you will need to do is first find where the refrigerant is leaking from, repair the leak, then you can begin refilling the system. I highly reccomend you read up big time on how to do this. It is not as simple as plugging a can in, then opening a valve. You need specialized gauges and lines to do it correct., otherwise you can have a possible explosion, (even more so with R-134a, since it runs at higher PSI inside the system.)

My personal opinion is that R-12 is a better system and it's worth the extra money to have it refilled, rather than converting to R-134a, which ultimatley will cost you extra money and time for a system that will not cool as effieciently.

Just my two cents, Hope this helps