Highway robbery?

[Chris142]

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15 minutes of work tops.

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How can you do that in 15 min. Say a customer comes in with a low system. First we must test the refrigerant with a refrigerant tester.....Mine cost $1500.If it's ok We must suck the remaining refrigerant out and write down how much we got out. The specs for the AC machine are that it must remove 95% of the refrigerant in 30 minutes.
I have already got 30+ min into it.

Now that it's empty I can replace what O-rings I may suspect. On a Car with snapLocks this will be all the O-Rings. This will take atleast another 30 mins.

I also must remove the orfice tube and inspect it. I don't know what condition the system is in w/o pulling it out. Now I know if I need to add oil.

Put the new tube back in, replace the charge ports or schraders.

Now the rules are that I must pull a vacuum on the system to the maximin vacuun I can achieve at my elevation. I won't get 29.99 @ my 3100ft.

After the vacuum is achieved I must turn the vacuum pump off and wait 5 minutes. If the vacuum rises I either have a leak or I have moisture boiling off in the system.

If it's moisture I must vacuum it again and let it sit. A quick 15 min vacuum is not enough! I have not even got all the air out yet. Once I'm satisfied that the moisture is gone I can add refrigerant and oil/dye to the system.



Once it's charged I must go around the entire system with a refrigerant sniffer.....This will take atleast 15 minutes.

If that checks out ok I will run the car, check vent temps etc.

Shut it down and go over it with a black light. If it still seems ok I must put a sticker on the car showing that I added AC die.

This is the procedures that a shop must follow to properly and legally recharge an AC system except for replacing all the O-rings. They are only required to replace the suspect ones I replace all I can access.

Do THAT in 15 minutes! Most people have no concept of what I takes to properly charge a AC system following the guidelines that the federal govt makes a shop follow.........But any body can go into AutoZone and recharge it at home but thats not the proper way to do it.

There are laws that Have not passed yet preventing an unlicensed person from buying R134A, they are coming though.Some states already have them.

 

[Gary Allan]

You're in an (at the current time, anyway) exceptional situation, Chris. If you weren't under mandate to do all that, you could cut some serious corners on that time. The material costs would also be much less. I've never (and have never heard of) preemptively replacing a Schrader valve. I'm sure that they demand a BIG premium over cost and I don't begrudge any shop that puts out cash to have supplies/parts on hand from getting their due in terms of what they charge vs. what they pay.

Most any service that I've seen virtually never results in the breeching of the system. A conversion, sure. New O rings.. ..but your detectors should pick up any leak if it has any charge ..your gauges or temp probes should detect any temp shortcomings that don't involve the "charge state". This should eliminate any reason to check the orifice tube.

I'm truly saying that I appreciate your position on this. You've got some really substantial hoops to jump through. But my local high(er) tech shop doesn't go through all of this and services AC all the time. They have the fancy machine and whatnot ..and the techs aren't Homers. They just aren't required to do all that (although they are required to do lots in recycling/disposal).

 

[Chris142]

If I don't replace the schraders it will leak once I remove the charging adaptor from it. Never fails. Then I gotta suck the system dry and start over.

If you don't check the tube you have no idea how much oil needs to be added or if the compressor is on it's way out. With expansion valves it's still a guess.

Recharging a system thats on it's way out is not doing the customer a favor..When it blows up in 2weeks they will blame me "well you were the last person to work on it".

So I pull the tube. If it' shows a problem I will tell the customer and go from there. This way I don't get bitten.

I was mainly showing how you can't properly recharge a system in 15 minutes like someone else said

 

[Junior]

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If I don't replace the schraders it will leak once I remove the charging adaptor from it. Never fails. Then I gotta suck the system dry and start over.

If you don't check the tube you have no idea how much oil needs to be added or if the compressor is on it's way out. With expansion valves it's still a guess.

Recharging a system thats on it's way out is not doing the customer a favor..When it blows up in 2weeks they will blame me "well you were the last person to work on it".

So I pull the tube. If it' shows a problem I will tell the customer and go from there. This way I don't get bitten.

I was mainly showing how you can't properly recharge a system in 15 minutes like someone else said

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OK, so more than 15 minutes. But, in your initial post you said this:

"The only proper way to recharge an r134a system is to completly empty it, weigh what came out, evac, add oil and recharge it using the scale in the machine.

This takes a couple of hours"

My point was, with the automatic machine, the above things don't take 2 hours. Add in all your checks then yes, 2 hours is reasonable.