Some of you may recall my car was stolen last year from my local Subaru dealer whilst in for a service, when it seems they keys may have been misplaced. Luckilly the car virtually unscathed bar a couple of scrathces whihc the dealer sorted but the aircon had packed up. This was finally sorted in September 03 when it was regassed and now just after being serviced it has packed up again.

It is likely that these two occurences are unrelated. How long does refrigerant gas last. I thought it was longer than 6 months.

Is £95 plus VAT reasonable for regassing ?

Any advice would be much appreciated as this is doing my head in.


AllanB

 

Hello mate,

Your refrigerant in the A/C system should last much longer than 6 month, but may need a small top-up from time to time (eg yearly check).

It sounds like there could be a slight leak from the pipes, I would get it looked at 'cos you dont want to have to shell out £95+ every 6 month for a re-charge.

As for price I cant remember what we charged in the garage, shop around anyone with the correct equipment can do the work, maybe even cheaper too.

Hope this helps.

 

Before a recharge the system is usually checked for leaks..at least that's what I was told...they put in a dye that reveals any leaks...do you know if this was done?...if not it would be an idea to have it done...had my old my99 regassed and it was still ok after 2 years...

 

When you get it re-gassed you can have a colouring added that shows where the gas is leaking. There is normally an extra charge for this a couple of pounds. Unfortunatly if its a small leak it may take some time to show - and you end up paying for another regassing once its been fixed.

Had a bad time of this with a 306 where it lasted about 4 months each time and turned out to be a cooroded pipe.

 

Definitley shop around. Had a quote from a specialist in the South Bucks area of £20+vat although this price was in a quote for the replacement of the condenser and may have been heavily discounted as the overall quote was rather high!

 

£60 for cash in a garage near me. Should last years rather than months.

 

Thanks guys. Now sounds like it should have been recheecked after the first regassing last year. Anyway its been regassed and works and I'm taking it back in about 10 days so they can try and find the leak.

Thanks for the advice. Certianly sounds like there is a problem.


AllanB

 

each time it is gassed its about £50 quid plus leak dye£10 and then the labour on top of that e.g £50 ph so u paid the goin rate really. there is normally a sensor (trinary switch) on the ac pipes witch can pack up and cause the system to fail even if it is gassed. so have alook for that. it just measures it pressures and state of the gas in the system.

M444GY

 

When you said the car had been lightly damaged...was it the front bumper area?

It could be that the condensor was damaged and is leaking gas. Having it leak tested will show it up. When you have the pressure checked in the system to see if it is low on gas, make sure you tell them that it was done only 6months ago, so they will invistigate rather than just top it back up.