A/C charge

[Capt'nMorgan]

How much work/price will it cost to drain and recharge the a/c in a car if it is to full of refrigerant and possible blown seal, I know it can be done by the common man and not have to take it to a shop but don't know how to do it?

[jeffreyd]

are you saying it is full now? if it has a blown seal, you can figure a compressor, dryer, orface tube, oil, freon. you could replace all of the hardware and find someone to vac it down and fill it up. If it has freon in the system, it is illegal to open the system to the atomsphere. Airjer or some of the other full time techs might be able to nail down a price pretty close. You need to let them know what type of car, year etc. Good luck

[Capt'nMorgan]

seal may not be blown, just to full

[Jeremy airjer W]

Most shops are going to do an a/c performance check. This would include checking the overall operation of the system, adding a die, and checking for leaks. You can expect to pay around $39 for this service not including freon.

An evac and recharge will run around $90 plus freon.

You can certainly request a shop to just evacuate the system. You can either then make repairs yourself or fill it your self. It is unlikely you will get a "credit" for the freon that is in your system if that's what you are thinking but it can't hurt to ask.

I can not vent r134 into the atmosphere. I can also not fill a system that has a leak or leave refrigerant in a system that I have found a leak in. You can pretty much do what you want but you should at least evacuate and recover the r134 properly if there is a large quantity in the system.

[jeffreyd]

or r12 if it is that old too airjer. Quick way to loose your permit and not do ac ever again. the one thing that gets me is i was watching dirty jobs one night when he was at a wrecking yard. the guy there took a pair of cutters and cut the ac line allowing it to go the the air. just wrong.

[hanson]

Not to hijack the thread but similar question.

99 GMC Sierra... I have no AC. The AC belt to the compressor is gone. Picked up a new one and put it on but a pretty loud squeek/squeal developed right away. Ran it for a little while and never did get any cold air out of it. I took the belt off as I didn't want to hear the squeal and of course it went away.

So its either in the compressor itself or the tension pulley (which was rusted up but loosened up pretty easily with WD40)

So if the compressor has to be replaced and then the system recharged, what kind of ballpark price we looking at here??

[Macgyver55]

The bearings can fail in the tensioner pulley causing a squeal and cause the belt to come off. If you had to lube it then its bad. Could be low on refrigerant in addition to the pulley being bad.

[jeffreyd]

I agree, lots of angles to go here. If you take the belt off as noted, spin the tensioner and see if it screams or is locked up. Also spin the compressor pulley and see if it is free. If you have all of that done, put belt on fire up and see if you can locate the noise, dont loose fingers in process. if you can locate the low pressure switch usually on the dryer, unplug it and put a jumper between the two wires to see if the compressor comes on. if it does then you may be low on refrigerant and get by with a simple recharge. But it does indicate that you have a leak in the system and it may rear its ugly head. Good luck.

[Jeremy airjer W]

So if the compressor has to be replaced and then the system recharged, what kind of ballpark price we looking at here??

You can expect $500 to $1400 dollars to get the average a/c system working again. Occasionally there are some that just need a relay, or a sensor, or another minor repair and the cost will be much less.

On a side note I have replaced a bunch of those tensioners as we slowly came out of winter and started with summer.

[hanson]

A/C Update...

Handed the truck over to my mechanic to figure out. He replaced the tension pulley which cured the squeek/squeal. Found out there was no (or very little) freon in the system, he recharged and we're up and running. Compressor is fine which was my big concern. Not too painful on the pocketbook either!

[spearchucker]

A/C Update...

Handed the truck over to my mechanic to figure out. He replaced the tension pulley which cured the squeek/squeal. Found out there was no (or very little) freon in the system, he recharged and we're up and running. Compressor is fine which was my big concern. Not too painful on the pocketbook either!

If the freon is low there is a leak somewhere. Freon doesn't get used up normally. Be prepared for it to stop working again sometime.

[Jeremy airjer W]

agreed!

[1johntimm]

Quick question on the A/C topic. We have a 07 Rav 4 and the A/C doesn't seem to be as cold as the 95 Camry or the 97 Tacoma which are both original A/C's with no work performed on them. Does the Rav 4 need more freon, and how much would this cost?

[spearchucker]

Quick question on the A/C topic. We have a 07 Rav 4 and the A/C doesn't seem to be as cold as the 95 Camry or the 97 Tacoma which are both original A/C's with no work performed on them. Does the Rav 4 need more freon, and how much would this cost?

No way to tell from here. Take it to a shop and check the charge.

[Jeremy airjer W]

I agree. For 30 to 40 dollars + freon you will have a much better idea of whats going on.

[Whoaru99]

Yup, have to get it checked out.

Could need repair or could be just that the AC in that one doesn't work as well as the others.

In theory, they'd all cool more or less the same because refrigerant properties, temperature vs pressure relationship, etc., but that's not the way it works in practices because of differences in design.