05 plate Ford Focus. Bought second hand early 2009. Only used at weekends and don’t have aircon on all that often.
But recently the air it’s pumping out just isn’t that cold. Noticable today that outside temp was 21 degrees, aircon was on but still sweaty in the car.
Will reconditioning sort it out?
How long should aircon work ok before needing a recon
And how much should I pay?

Take it to Kwik Fit (about the only thing I would take to them mind)

They will remove all your old gas, pressure test the circuit and then if it’s all ok refill it again. All for about £45.

If they can’t put gas back in they leave the system empty and don’t charge you for the service.

http://www.kwik-fit.com/about-air-conditioning.asp

Kqik fit can also check your levels too for free

a few places out there will do it for about that price. well worth it.

takes about 40 mins

Indeed that is a bargain 😉

Mine was done 3 weeks ago for 49.99- It now leaks again and is no longer cold again.

Kwit fit “customer services” say – it worked on the day we fixed it, something else is broken.

I kicked up a stink – they found lots of luminous stuff leaking from the radiator. Repair cost is now more the the car’s value.

Just a cautionary tale I guess – they fix it, it works, get their cash and if its as leaky as a sieve well – they still want their 49.99.

you get deals in winter from Kwik fit and it drops to about £30 iirc. Probably wait and check for offers

There must surely be alternatives to KF – I wouldn’t trust them to top up my tyres.

AC ‘servicing’ makes me laugh, a lot. Modern climate control systems should realistically never need a ‘service’, & if you have a problem then it is because you have, unsurprisingly, a ‘problem’ IE a hole for the gas to leak out of, and funny enough if you ‘service’ it without fixing the hole it will just leak out again.

I hate con artists like certain tyre retailers with a passion, they advertise cheap prices to get you in so they can rip you apart & get more money to a captive customer, never a nice business plan unless your just in it for max profit with no regard as to the customer needs/wants.

Cheers.

Kwik Fit tested mine, found it to be knackered, didn’t charge anything.

A local air conditioning chap came around twice – once on a Sunday morning, again on a Tuesday evening, spent ages on it, explained exactly what he was doing and all the things that Kwik Fit don’t do, and left me with a freezing cold car all for a tenner more than Kwik Fit were going to charge just to regas it.

I’ve moved elsewhere now but I’ll be getting a specialist out when it needs doing again.

2unfit2ride… +1

I’ve used a local refrigeration engineer in the past. Cheaper than an auto-specialist

Just to reiterate, tricks like ‘your AC will be 10% colder or we wont charge you’, are just that, are you sure that the probe they stuck down the vent wasn’t just shoved a little further down the vent to ‘massage’ the figure?

AC is like your fridge, it works or something is broken, simple as.

Cheers.

My arson stopped working last summer on 04 plate mindeo. Advice on here was that it would cost £100’s do nothing to loose by going to quick fit as I assumed their regas wouldnt work and therefore be free. After the regas it worked fine and no problems since.

The gas leaks out over a couple of years even from a healthy system, the molecules are small enough to seep slowly through the molecular matrix of the hoses and other rubber components. It’s the same reason why your latex party balloon goes down after a few days and your bike tyres lose pressure.

@globalti. Blimey. Dint know they but plain old air in aircon, what a con. All them bottles with R134a on them. Bloody swizzards 😉

The second word of my post is GAS.

Muppet.

I would get the aircon serviced once a year,In a typical vehicle it should take about an hour, including replacing the pollen filter, disinfecting the interior air supply, and a full re-gas (refrigerant)and more importantly the compressors lubricating oil that is suspended in the gas.

This job is best done if the vehicle is in for scheduled work as the equipment used is fully automated, and can be left conected to the vehicle while the technician works on other tasks within the service.

Any less than a 50 minute cycle and its not a proper service,charges are going to vary, but ask the right questions, get the right answers,and then make your mind up..I would avoid quick fit and go to a reputable technician/specialist.

To keep the system reliable use it as much as possible,even in winter for de-misting, fuel economy is only effected on really hot/humid days when the system works harder to keep the interior cool. hth

vw main dealer charged around 40 for mine. put a nice lemony smell in it too (lasted a few weeks) 🙂

My AC, stopped working, so I took it to Kwik Fit, they checked the system and regassed it and three months later it had leaked out again, I then took it to the main dealer and asked them to sort it properly, they did exactly what Kwik Fit had done, just checked it with their automatic equipment and then proclaimed it fit and healthy, three months later it was not working again!

I then noticed that the front air con radiator, was leaking slightly from one corner, if the technicians had bothered to actually check the system visually rather than just relying on the technology they wouldn’t have regassed it! I got it drained down, bought a new condensor and dessicator from Ebay, fitted them and then went and got it regassed at Kiwk Fit, now 12 months later its still all fine and dandy!

I can’t stand Kwik Fit for things like tyres (we had to run our company vehicles through them and they were a pain in the ass!) But they are one of the cheapest places to get Air con sorted and virtually all the garages use the same equipment.

+1 for kwik fit, had an old Terrano air con serviced a few years back and the ACused to run so cool that rear seat passengers would complain it was too cold behind the tinted windows.

Only used at weekends and don’t have aircon on all that often.

And there’s your problem…

My 13 year old 5 series, aircon always used and cold as the preverbial.

IMO its false economy not to use the aircon, all the time

CGaVgAs, can I ask why a fridge doesn’t require servicing & yet normally lasts about 10 years?

Fridges have copper tubing soldered together, no rubber tubing used and the gas compression/expansion uses ammonia which is a larger molecule.

thanks sandwich..,I have no knowledge of fridges 😉

fuel economy is only effected on really hot/humid days when the system works harder to keep the interior cool

Not in my car. I can feel the power reduce instantly when the AC is turned on and fuel consumption increases by at least 10%. Mind you it is 13 years old!

fuel economy is only effected on really hot/humid days when the system works harder to keep the interior cool

I’ve found that the extra effort in cooling the car is offset by the increase in economy generated by warmer air. I always get my best economy on the hottest days.

My aircon’s never worked while I’ve had the car- weirdly it was missing the aircon relay in fact. Pressing the button doesn’t cause the rev drop it should in a focus, so the motor’s not engaging/starting for some reason. I’ve never bothered to get it checked out since I’m not paying £50 for “It’s broken, and not worth repairing”… Think it’s worth a visit to Kwikfit?

Older cars had a switch to increase the throttle when you hit the a/c button. Nowadays it’s all electronic of course.

Take it to Kwik Fit (about the only thing I would take to them mind)

They will remove all your old gas, pressure test the circuit and then if it’s all ok refill it again. All for about £45.

If they can’t put gas back in they leave the system empty and don’t charge you for the service.

In my experience they pretend to check your system, fill it anyway, charge you and then refund you when 2 miles later it’s all leaked out. Even when you’ve asked them to check for leaks because they’re common on this model. Oh well.

As mentioned by some the gas they put into the AC system acts as a lubricant to stop the seals from splitting hence why the car manuals usually tell you to run them periodically to keep the system working. Gas will still escape and require topping up which is normally every two years maximum.
Most system have a safety cutoff whereby if you don’t have enough pressure in the system it won’t engage the AC compressor, Northwind this is probably what’s wrong with yours. Kwik fit are doing a regas for £29 if you book it online and if they can’t get it cooler then they don’t charge you.

Hmm been watching this thread, as my focus AC need sorting too, but I was going to ignore it till next year when it would be more use (ain’t gunna need it over winter am I & am skint), but if the gas also acts as the lubricant.. am I going to damage the system further by not getting it re-charge asap? (as the seals dry out)

Good call on posting the kwik fit £29 online booking option BTW

You should use you AC during the winter too as its great for demisting windscreens. If it needs sorting do it or pay out later.

I have the fanatisic ford heated windscreen, so don’t need the ac to do that… will I have to pay more to get it fixed later though, or can I just put it off without any futher consequences is my query?

Especially if as you say my system probably has gas in it, just not enough pressure to make it work. 11 year old car, the ac only stopped working this year and I’ve never had it recharge in my 5 years of ownership

As mentioned by some the gas they put into the AC system acts as a lubricant to stop the seals from splitting hence why the car manuals usually tell you to run them periodically to keep the system working. Gas will still escape and require topping up which is normally every two years maximum.
Most system have a safety cutoff whereby if you don’t have enough pressure in the system it won’t engage the AC compressor, Northwind this is probably what’s wrong with yours. Kwik fit are doing a regas for £29 if you book it online and if they can’t get it cooler then they don’t charge you.

It’s actually the oil they inject with the gas – the gas doesn’t lube. And 2 years is shocking, we have a car sat on the drive that hasn’t been re-gassed ever in it’s life and it still icy cold – it’s a 1998 renault but it’s air con is used every couple of weeks for preventative reasons! 🙂

I have the fanatisic ford heated windscreen, so don’t need the ac to do that

The heated windscreen on my VW takes far longer than the aircon to demist the windscreen. Aircon takes about 2 seconds.