Kestas
Staff member
This is a hotly debated issue. If you want facts, there have been no documented cases of any horrible fiery instance from someone having HC refrigerant in their a/c system, even though there are many cars on the road with HC in the a/c system. This danger is way overhyped.
We're talking about roughly 8 ozs HC in a car. I find it difficult to worry about it considering the many gallons of volatile gasoline a car carries. Plus, the HC would need to be rather concentrated for ignition.
Explosion from lighting a cigarette or static electricity inside a car with a leaky system?... I would expect a person wouldn't get inside a car that reeked of propane. Even if the smell was strong, it still needs to be concentrated enough for ignition.
Explosion from an accident rupturing the a/c system?... Again, the HC needs to be concentrated and there needs to be an ignition source. The HC would vent so fast and would get diluted rather quickly in the unfortunate event of a crash.
Someone would be hard pressed to find a situation where 8 ozs of HC refrigerant would pose a threat to someone, without that person ending up as a candidate for a Darwin award.
Here's a couple of web sites if you want to research this further. In one of them is buried factual evidence (or lack of).
http://www.autoacforum.com/categories.cfm?catid=2
http://acsource.net/acforum/viewforum.php?f=1
We're talking about roughly 8 ozs HC in a car. I find it difficult to worry about it considering the many gallons of volatile gasoline a car carries. Plus, the HC would need to be rather concentrated for ignition.
Explosion from lighting a cigarette or static electricity inside a car with a leaky system?... I would expect a person wouldn't get inside a car that reeked of propane. Even if the smell was strong, it still needs to be concentrated enough for ignition.
Explosion from an accident rupturing the a/c system?... Again, the HC needs to be concentrated and there needs to be an ignition source. The HC would vent so fast and would get diluted rather quickly in the unfortunate event of a crash.
Someone would be hard pressed to find a situation where 8 ozs of HC refrigerant would pose a threat to someone, without that person ending up as a candidate for a Darwin award.
Here's a couple of web sites if you want to research this further. In one of them is buried factual evidence (or lack of).
http://www.autoacforum.com/categories.cfm?catid=2
http://acsource.net/acforum/viewforum.php?f=1