Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Branches Eastern Canada My Air Conditioning Refill Experience

This is the beginning of the story:

Well I had crappy air condition all summer long.. and it took 5-10 minutes for it to work well... then when I got my tranny installed the air didn't work at all!

So finaly I got some r124a cans and a refill kit from Wal-Mart (my dad picked it up when he was in the States on business)

it cost $33US (2 Cans and 1 refill hose kit)

It took a whole 15 minutes to do! I read the instructions very carefully not to screw anything up

after the first can the air came out of the middle console super cold! (so I guess if you have air coming out of the centre console only, you might be low)

Then the second can..2 minutes later everything was working back to normal and the car sounded way better than before.. didn't sound like it was struggling to get the A/C working..

So this weekend I am heading up to Montreal and hoping (key word hoping) that I don't have a leak and it will last me another 8 years :P

Crossing My fingers .. and I will write up a report when I come back..

Cheers
Martin

Well let me know

how it works out. I just went to Niagara Falls NY this morning and picked up an R134 can and refill kit at Advance Auto. Haven't used it yet. My car has a s-l-o-w leak. I want to put it in, but not until I really need to. I'm curious to know, but then you might have a BIGGER leak than me. (hope you don't )

GT

Well I got back and My A/C still works!! yey!!
don't know how long its going to work but crossing my fingers that it works till next summer! if anything I will fill it up with one more can (since it takes 3 if completely empty) the best part is that I had the best mileage EVER! I got 641 kms on one tank of gas!!! so 641kms on 49.5 Litres of gas! do the math on the way back I got 580kms with a little traffic.. keep in mind this is 99.5% highway.

If anyone has crappy A/C its worth to try this route first before taking the expensive route.. $33US is a lot less than $300Cdn..

cheers
Martin

This is eactly what I did, except I bought a case (12) of R134a. I sold a few to help out some friends.

Not a bad mileage for a V6 (7.7L/100km). In comparison, I get regularly 1150km on my 2000 Jetta TDI with 61L of Diesel (5.3Ll/100km). I drive 80% highway at around 130km/h. If I ever had a chance to cruise below 120km/h for a long trip it would be around 1250 to 1300km for a tank (that's under 5L/100km).

Performace wise the 1.9L, 90hp TDI engine feels the same as a Ztec or any other gasoline equvalent. Except they have huge amount of low end torque (bellow 2000rpms).