About Car air condition systems:
How can a small freon leak cause a domino effect that goes from hundreds to thousands of dollars?
In short, the air condition system in a vehicle gets used to it's environment. And around Ventura, the weather is pretty much ideal most of the time. As such, air condition systems in those vehicles become lazy. That's right, Lazy!
But then you take them up the Conejo grade and it all changes,
Let me explain, the most common problem with automotive air condition systems is leaks. But that is only the beginning. The oil that lubricates the system is carried and moved around by the freon. So, as the freon leaks out, the system starves of lubricants , and additional failures ensue.The first item to go is the compressor, all the internal valves are made from Teflon and they fall apart quickly without lubrication. The debris from the valves tends to plug the expansion valve and frequently the tubes in the evaporator and the condenser (the ports are very small, typically in the thousands of an inch) . Since you have to open up the system, you should replace the dehydrator receiver as they become saturated with moisture. Let's not forget that a thorough cleaning of the lines should be performed in order to avoid a repeat failure.
We get a lot of vehicles that come to us from clients who were at other shops for this. They only had the compressor replaced and it worked okay for a short period of time. The other shop replaced the compressor again, for a second time when it failed, (called it a parts failure) and the system again worked for a short period of time.
By the third time, the vehicle owner had lost his patience and no longer trusted the shop. They either felt the shop didn't know what they were doing or their choice of parts was not up to par.
By the time we got the vehicle here, usually the contamination was massive and the amount of clean up work was overwhelming.
A little explanation about freon leaks. The pressure of freon inside the working system is proportional to the outside temperature and environmental conditions. The system has to work a lot harder when the temperatures rise and when there is a high moisture content. Typically, when the ambient air temperature is around 70 degrees, the internal pressure for the air condition system would be around 140-180 psi. But when the temperature rises to lets say 85 degrees, the internal pressure will exceed above 200 psi and could go as high as 230-280 psi So, leaks that wouldn't occur at lower pressures, will show up once the heat is on.
Let's face it, over the last month, it's been hot and therefore we've had a lot more calls about air condition systems failing in cars.
Give me my old weather back! Even if it means less work.
