DIY air con regassing kits ?

[ivanford]

Any one any first hand experience with using the DIY air con gas charging kits on their 300C?

My car is now almost 7 years old and although it has very low miles (7K) it must have lost some of the gas by now. The air con still works , but I was thinking of giving it a bit of a top up.

I bought the Halfords DIY kit last week and used it on a friends 7 year old Vauxhall Mireva, it seems to have worked very well and the air con is working much better (far colder). I only added a relatevly small amount of gas to bring the pressure gauge on the gas trigger unit into the middle of the green range. I don't think it is leaking, it just lost a little gas over time and he didn't use the system very much either.

I really don't trust any of the so called local air con specialists with my p&j in case it gets damaged.

[paul@thecustom300cshop]

i have done them on a few cars, problems are if there are leaks is may last a day / week / month depending on how bad there are.

Only good thing as the kits are cheap, so if you do have a leak its not that much wasted, hard part would be finding a leak

[badgx]

Halford's give back around £10 when the canister is returned. They work as long as the system is tight, they probably sell the dye which can be added to the system to locate leaks.

On a separate note, I notice a/c improves changing to a new cabin filter, it felt like ice after a change

[ivanford]

I have changed the cabin filter once, the one I took out at around 4,000 miles was just like new.

[padpadpadpad]

How do you change the cabin filter ?

[devilmaycare]

This must be about the easiest filter to replace. Its located under the windscreen on the passenger side and needs no tools to access. Just release the side tabs from the "letter-box" style container, pull out the old filter and replace with new. Make sure the arrows on the filter follow the air flow.

[ivanford]

A quick update on this little project for anyone that is interested.

I topped up the system today. When I connected the filler / gauge the system was showing on the low edge of the green (normal) range. I only added a small amount of gas (approximately 100 gramms by weight) which brought the needle about a third of the way up the green range, I didn't want to overfill it and do any damage as it was already working OK.
When the compressor cuts in and out the pressure goes up and down a bit, I have it filled so that it is allways in the green scale of the gague.

There seems to be a marked improvement in the operation of the air con, it's now nice and cold, with condensation forming on the outside of the windscreen at the demisting vents. Remember my car is 7 years old and the system has never been touched, except for the pollen filter change. I do run it for a few minutes every time the car is used, to keep it working. It would appear that a small amount of gas is lost over time, but I don't think it's anything like 10% a year.

It would appear that a small drop off in gas content has a marked drop on system performance. I think I will give it a little sniff of gas every year, just to keep it topped up.

I would have enough gas left to top this up again like this maybe 3 or 4 times.

Time to do about 10 minutes and cost about £10, if you count the gas will do several more topups.

[Simon@thecustom300cshop]

Take a car to kwik-tit with an A/C sensor disconnected. They fill the system correctly and if it don't work they don't charge then go down the road and reconnect the sensor lmao.

[ivanford]

It wouldn't be my style to do something like that, I also wouldn't trust them not to bugger it up on me.

[ivanford]

It shows air con gas topping up like this in my USA haynes workshop manual. It must be a fairly normal DIY procedure over there.

I don't know how critical the exact amount is, I suspect not that critical. It seems to either work fairly well or not really at all. Obviously from new there must be some leakage over a period of time and it still works OK.