air con refill

[wizdumb]

so this might sound like a dumb question...

...but how do you know if your car aircon is almost empty - please don't say when it stops blowing cold air.

my reason is for asking (and thx to the extreme heat here in gp), is that i don't want find oneday the aircon is gone, and suffer in the heat for a day or 4

also if its empty can i just stop at one of those roadside places to fill it up?

 

[kronoSX]

yes you can.Is there a foul smell in the system.

 

[bdt]

so this might sound like a dumb question...

...but how do you know if your car aircon is almost empty - please don't say when it stops blowing cold air.

Refrigeration devices that go "SOG" (short of gas) exhibit this state by icing up (sometimes massively) on the evaporator unit so if you've got wetness (the lump of ice around the evaporator melting in the heat), that's likely it.

also if its empty can i just stop at one of those roadside places to fill it up?

Sure but beware of people stuffing the wrong, i.e. potentially explosive, gas into your system. Also, some further reading.

 

[wizdumb]

no, no foul smell.....

i'll check under the hood after drving with the ac on full blast - not sure how the evaporator unit looks - but if its iced, i'll know what too look for.

i wonder what they charge?
maybe is just worth it stopping there and asking them to fill it up

busy reading the wikihow, thx

 

[Ivork]

Dude if your car needs more gas, then there is obviously a LEAK!! It's a sealed system, the gas doesn't get "used up". Do you regas your fridge? No, only if it's broke and its leaked out!!!!!

 

[bdt]

^^ what he said is particularly relevant ..if you are SOG, you need to treat the cause and not just alleviate the symptoms.

As to what's what: the evaporator is (apart from just that) the part that makes the cold - in a car it's buried somewhere in the recesses of the dash. But in a house, say in a split system, it's the part you find inside - usually up against the ceiling. The other part: in the house it's bolted outside and in the car is in front of your usual radiator is to dump the heat and start the whole cycle again via the compressor; the bit that, quelle surprise squishes the gas back into liquid form for the next lap.

And that's aircon in a nutshell!