DIY Air Con Re-gas?...

Chadford

...anyone done this?

I drive an *old* BMW 3 series. The air con has slowly slowly slowly gone to nothing over about four years. Assuming it just needs re-gassing, I was thinking about trying something like this...

http://amzn.eu/d/cUjJKXL

It would appear that I could get Halfords or a local garage to re-gas for about £50-£60.

I've found an excellent YouTube video which shows re-gassing my particular vehicle, it looks trivial to do.
I quite fancy having a go to fix this myself and if successful and I need to do it again at some point in the future I would then already have the hose with pressure dial and thus only would need the re-gas canister (~£20). As a repair, if I cock it up it doesn't really matter as I still have a car that drives.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Ta.

noiseboy72

If the system has been empty for any period of time, the seals will dry out and it's unlikely the system will work for long. You may also have a slight leak that a garage will identify and fix.

There's a slight complication regarding the gas type. What age is your car? Really old cars used R22, which is not compatible with R134a. Your car needs to be really old for this to be an issue though.

I would get it recharged professionally, as you will have any leaks sorted out and the correct quantity of gas put back into the system.

Monty Nine

What he said.

un1eash

Not worth messing around with. A proper air con service removes any existing gas while checking for leaks then replaces exactly what the system needs along with the oil additive.

mjn

The price of the older gas has gone up 4x in the last year, so be ready for a chunk of cash if your car uses that one.

ashenfie

I think it correct to say when you loose refrigerant you could have lost more oil. The refrigerant pushes the oil around and therefore you need to remove both and add the correct amount of both until the system is correctly pressurised.

Systems that have run for sometime blowing warning have therefore have not been pushing the oil around the system and the compressor therefore maybe broken.

Ac systems pipe also have a bad habit of leaking which is best located by  Profession who will add an indicator to locate them.

outoftheknow

Car systems like any fridge system are supposed to be “sealed”. If you lose gas it is rarely a good idea to add more without checking where it went IMO.

mjn

True but due to vibrations in a car, it’ll lose ~10% of its refrigerant per year as the pipes and seals move.  Whereas your fridge doesn’t move and has no vibrations.

outoftheknow

TBF I didn’t say my fridge. I said fridge system. I’ve worked on many that move with lots of vibrations.  I don’t disagree there may be small leakage. I don’t think you should be losing 10% per year but in any case I stand by having it checked for leaks and topped up by somebody not using a kit and a YouTube video.

mjn

My car lost about 10% / year. Car is 7 years old and had only 20-30% coolant left.