15/10/2020
Is your vehicle's refrigerant actually proper AC gas?
Many technicians and car owners makes the dangerous assumption that any generic AC gas works, never questioning the purity or compatibility of the vehicle's AC refrigerant within their vehicles. In fact most people would think it's fine, until their AC systems run into problems where there is difficulty maintaining cooling performance due contaminated, mismatched or counterfeit AC gas usage. This can also eventually lead to accidents, involving money and loss of life, due to a cascading effect where one small issue ends up affecting the entire system.
How serious is the imitation or mismatched AC gas problem?
The bane of modern AC. Many are labelled as AC gas claiming to work in your vehicle, but most of them are in fact incompatible. Worse if there is a improper mixture, as various chemical reactions after cross contamination will directly affect the AC system, and even scrap the entire AC system.
This is compounded by various businesses putting profit first, meaning they will do everything do earn a buck, thus even go as low as mixing with various chemicals or hydrocarbons, such as R12, R22, R32, R40 and other unknown chemical vapours into your AC. Among them, R40 is a especially flammable and dangerous. If a leak occurs, it will pose a major fire hazard to the vehicle occupants and Sparks from any source may ignite the leaking AC Gas, causing an explosion.
What else can affect a vehicle's AC gas?
Air. Yes, regular air around you. It is an unnecessary component in the AC system, because air does not change from v***r to liquid under pressure by the compressor, and it occupies valuable space normally occupied by AC gas in the AC system. Thus air will cause cooling function to decline, and it can start intermittent cooling problems, increase compressor noise due to additional workload, and shorten the service life of the equipment!
Air can enter the AC system in several ways, 1. The outside air enters the AC system through a leak.
2. After the system is opened for maintenance, it is not returned to a vacuum state, allowing errant air to stay inside.
3. Unprofessional technicians improperly adding AC gas.
4. The equipment and tools are not correct or compatible.
So what is the correct AC Gas?
The most widely used proper AC gas is R-134a. The cooling
characteristics of R-134a is very close to the older R-12 (used in
previous generation vehicles), and it is non-toxic and non-flammable.
The latest iteration is called R-1234yf. Although it is slightly
flammable, it is of little to no harm to the environment or the user. It
will soon replace R-134a as the main gas used in car AC. However, it is
only currently on the market in some European cars, and is expensive,
where 220g is about RM700.00~800.00, which can cost over the long run.
But, quality products will always ensure a better user experience.