17tamx, hard to get pissed at a mechanic who is working for free and not an air conditioning tech. Not to mention the fact that he does not have a vacuum or any of that specialized baloney. I'm not going to pay someone good money to use a special machine the tree huggers think we should use to save the environment and all that malarkey, just to add a can or three of freon to a low system.

IAC, he went over everything with a sniffer, and found no leaks. The pressure has not changed so we will have to wait and see what happens. I will also add that the A/C units in these trucks suck to high heaven. After those cans of 134a were added, I didnt feel that the air was cooling like it was before when it was low. Rode in my bosses 08 1500 and found the air subpar to other vehicles I have rode in as well.

Two questions:
Why would the air in my truck appear to cool the truck better being low on 134a?

What is the deal with the weak air systems in these trucks?

My wifes super crew F150 will freeze you butt out after driving 5 minutes on the "2" setting. My truck has to be run on high and takes a while longer.

 

Sorry, I do not have time to check the Dodge Forum every day since I am working all day calling on Repair shops talking to them about proper A/C Repair proceedures and then teaching an A/C class each night for three hours from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Somestimes I do 3 classes per week this week I am doing 5. I cover 13 States for a manufacturer of New USA Made A/C Compressors.

As I stated before, A/C is the second hardest thing on a car or truck to fix correctly the first time. Like any high tech system on a car many specialized tools are needed to do the job correctly.

I am not mad at your friend for trying to help you out for free. That is between you and you friend. If you don't like the advise that you get on this forum when you ask a question thats fine too. However, I can't tell you how to get the results that you want if you are not prepaired to do the job correctly. There is no cheap partial repair available at this time.

My 2004 1500 QC with 243K miles blows nice and cold here in Arizona. I am still on all my original factory installed A/C items. I properly service my system with the correct equimpent as preventitive maintenance every year now since the truck is 6 years old.

The average life of a factory installed A/C system is five to six years and 100K miles while the average life of a replacement A/C compressor tends to be 13 months and about 14K. Why the big difference? The repair industry has not been keeping up with the design and construction changes in the componets and they have not made the reqired investment in the proper equipment to service these smaller updated A/C systems. Things that we use to do with OK results just will not work with these new systems.

Good luck with your A/C problem.

 

I am a A/C tech and I need to know how much freon he put in your system to properly dianose the new issue. My A/C will freeze my nuts off, so I can tell you yours is not working properly. If he added 3 cans of what I am figuring 1 oz. cans, your probably 2.5 oz. over full,your pressures will read very high on a hot day 150+ high side, its like choking the system. You'll need an A/C tech now to recover that freon. Your friend may be trying to help, but he wouldnt know about A/C unless he had his certs. Like I stated before, on a 75 degree day your low side should read betwen 35 and 40, your highside, the side that tells you if the freon is low will read between around 125psi, these pressures drop with with temp and humidity. Your system only holds 2.2 oz of freon, so three cans low is the answer of someone who doesnt know anybetter. I hate when advice is asked then ignored, you have potentialy a bigger problem as you can blow seals out, also freon will leak out of the system when the system isnt in use during the winter season, leave it on all year long. The other reason you need to go to a shop now and have the system recovered, oil drained (because usually those cans have oi lin them) vacced down, and the proper amount of oil reinstalled, proper amount of freon put in and a good road test to see if any other problems are there.

 

Question and an update.

I decided to take the situation into my own hands, and found that, yes, it was WAY WAY WAY WAY overfull.

I rented a vacuum and pulled everything out, and vacuumed for 1.5 hours. I added 6 oz of oil, and had 3 12 oz cans of 134a. I put the oil in (calls for 6.25 oz), and 2 12 oz cans in. The system calls for 32 oz of 134a. Do I put that 3rd can in and guesstimate how much to vacuum out? How to go about splitting the last 4 oz off the 3rd can is my question. Air blows ice cold now but is still low. Any idea on what to do with the recovered stuff? I do appreciate all the advice and it was not ignored lightly. Its just that I was raised better than to pay hundreds of dollars for a service that can be taken care of for considerably less at home. I am sure most techs are great guys, such as the ones who took the time to reply to this thread. Sadly, the establishments that offer their services are upsellers to the highest degree. I know damn well if I go in for a $30 routine service, I will end up forking $300+, they will find something wrong whether anything is wrong or not. My ignorance and laziness could have well ended up costing me greatly, and still might. Had I been patient enough I would have waited until I got off of work and researched it and tackled myself to start with. The mechhanic and I will have a chat as well, I dont know if simple math was a subject in his school or not.

 

1lbs 10 oz to me sounds a bit low, where did you get that number, never the less if you dont have guages stop now, youll go through this all again! if you have them look at the highside reading, this tells you if your low or high or right on the money. if it sits at 125 to 135 your done, if its up at 140 or above your over full, 115 and lower you need a bit more. You should have these guages hooked to your bottle with the suction side open and disc harge closed while filling, keeping an eye on the high side reading. This is the only way to do it if you dont have the recovery machine

 

And for the record, you woulda payed a tech 40 dollars flatrate so yes you may have ended up paying maybe 120 to 150 to fix, your friend put 3 cans of freon in, you bought another 3 cans...How were you raised, I was at Autozone yesterday and a 12oz can was 39.99 meaning on freon alone you paid 239.00, not including the other costs you just went through on rented equipmant. part 2 of this is its summer, No shop that is busy is gonna search for new problems, they get paid by the job and want you out of there garage asap so theycan bring in the next vehicle.

 

The exact same thing happened to me last summer. Truck was only 3 months old and A/C quit while I was pulling my boat along the highway. 15 min. later - was back on again. The really weird part was the way the air seemed to be blowing nowhere except inside the dash. Very little coming out of the vents.
It hasn't happened since.

 

I do have a set of gauges, high side pressure (the red gauge right? lol) is between 115 and 120. 6 cans of freon is at $8 a piece is $48, 2-3 oz cans of oil at $5.50 brings the total to $59. Charges for renting the vac pump and gauges is $340 refunded when I return them to Autozone. The quantities I have are from the service manual i downloaded, not to mention the sticker under the hood that says max capacity is 32 oz of 134a.

It is quite clear to me that the problem I was having was simply the result of a little evaporation/leakage through winter and only of a few oz, the mechanic at work added way more than the system could hold, for why IDK.

 

the good thing about 134a is you cant swap the fittings and make a bonehead mistake, yes the highside is the red guage, my opinion is your done, leave it be, when the issue rises again, use the can to recharge, so your all set.

 

If I do run into trouble with the freezing again, would that be reason to add that other can?