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Local garage was going to re-gas my A/C today but couldn't because they were unsure of the gas inside the system. How do I determine what is in there or do all S2's have newer type of gas?
what age is the car. 1993 onwards you should be safe to assume R134a, earlier will be R12. Either way they should have been able to sniff it with an analyser and confirm to you what is there or not, sounds like they are being lazy.
there may also be a sticker on the underside of the bonnet or close to the condensor with some charge info and it would normally confirm the gas used and the wieght.
It should be obvious to the garage by the connectors on the A/C system. Originally your system would have been filled with R12 if it's an old car changing to R134a around 1992 onwards.
R12 & R134a connectors have different diameters. I guess the garage were worried that if you don't have R134a your system, then as they empty it whatever is in your system would contaminate their bottle of R134a.
If you do have an R12 system it would be impressive if it had any R12 left in it after all this time. There were also some R12 substitues around used as R12 was phased out.
Whatever your car was originally filled with, as long as it's emptied first it can be refilled with R134a + oil and work fine.
The shop is being lazy IMHO - just evacuate all gas and oil, do a pressure check, then refill with R134a and compatible oil... They should also have connector adapters to convert to normal R134a fittings to make life easier, but at the very least should provide a durty big sticker somewhere obvious.
Thanks for advice. My car is 1994 ABY Avant so I'm guessing that R12 would have been phased out by then. Yes, they can get a gas analyser later this week; they just don't want to contaminate their machine. I'll suggest that they drain the system (gas and oil) and fill with R134a seeing as it'll run fine with the condensor and pump.
MY94 is deffo R134a - look for a sticker on inside of your bonnet to confirm...
Tell them that there is a low pressure port on the compressor - not all AC men spot that and its not a normal sized R134 service port. If they have to drain or recharge the system from high pressure port (not all machine allow that) then it MUST be done with compressor turned off.
A simple adapter hose can be made up for the low pressure port however. Pretty sure there is a post about it on here somewhere. If found I'll make that a sticky.
The "official" low pressure connector is in the passenger footwell up beside & to the right of the Motronic ECU below the A/C low pressure switch on the pipe on its way to go through the bulkhead but Paul is right there is often a port on the compressor which is the best one to use to get all the old oil out if you can. The yellow hose in a standard A/C gauge set will connect to it - but the yellow hose has a one way valve in it so it's faff to get it to work.............
It would be a brave AC man to get up the back of the evaporator and access that LP port - but yes Johne is right. I think this must have been the start of Audi trying to get their cars into the dealership for even the most trivial task of testing/charging the AC system as they didn't follow the accepted practice of providing low and high pressure service ports. I suspect this changed some time later as US and EU regulations would have probably made this harder/impossible for Audi to ignore with bespoke connectors and such.
The service port on all the compressors is the old style R12 type connector. Thats why they prolly got confused. The high pressure port is the std R134a connector located on the manifold of the condensor.
The port inside the car is nearly impossible to connect to and it too is the old R12 type connector, PITA.
As for dumping the old gas...... thats VERY illegal and could land the person/garage doing it a massive £20k fine.
S2's after approx mid 93 were R134a, there 'should' be a sticker on the bonnet stating this. As a rough rule, if its 3B then its R12. I had no issues running my 3B on R134a, removed compressor and drained oil and then refilled using correct oil and R134a.
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Tom C - www.rcmr.co.uk
Audi UR Quattro
Audi 100 C3 2.0 5 cyl 115ps
Audi S2 - 07k engine project aiming for 800ps
Audi B5 RS4 645ps 911nm
I suspect the V6 has them both in engine compartment too - I'm detecting this might have been done for US market - somewhere that owners rightly expect to be able to take ANY car to ANY professional garage and get work done outside of dealership monopoly.
While we are on about that - we have the US marketplace - California in particular, to thank for the proliferation of OBD capability on cars worldwide - so that emissions could be kept in check by any garage or test house. Cars had to have OBD in order to be sold in California by a certain date - thank goodness them thar Californians love their new cars so much
The shop is being lazy IMHO - just evacuate all gas and oil, do a pressure check, then refill with R134a and compatible oil... They should also have connector adapters to convert to normal R134a fittings to make life easier, but at the very least should provide a durty big sticker somewhere obvious.
cant do this on a R12 system, R143a is much thinner than R12 and can bleed through the pipes of an R12 system - this would result in a big fine if you got caught
not to mention in the event that you are in a confined space and the gas is combusted ie through the engine R12 produces mustard gas, 143a not as bad but still pretty nasty, the gas is heavier than air tho so if this happens over say a pit this then becomes a serious hazard
Its only an offense if you knowingly vent the gas to atmosphere, ie crack a pipe off without evacuating or fill a car with a known leak.
R12 gas molecules are larger than 134a hence why it can leak. If all the seals are good in parts like compressor etc then they dont leak, the rubber pipes dont ever leak from being porous. Have converted loads and loads of vehicles and only had issues with leaks on 2, which were fixed with new seals.
sigpic
Tom C - www.rcmr.co.uk
Audi UR Quattro
Audi 100 C3 2.0 5 cyl 115ps
Audi S2 - 07k engine project aiming for 800ps
Audi B5 RS4 645ps 911nm
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