Technical Aircon - broken pipe

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Technical Aircon - broken pipe

Re: Air con pipe

System wont work properly because you didnt change the filter/drier. Good to do jobs yourself but take the advice of people who know.
 
Re: Air con pipe

The filter/drier is like ronseal, it does exactly what its called. It filters the aircon gas and removes any moisture, unfortunately if the vehicle has a broken pipe on it then moisture is absorbed from outside and contaminates the filter/drier. It absorbs all it can but becomes clogged and an aircon engineer will not be able to fit it for £55. So the cost is not as you described. Aircon systems do not like being left open to the atmosphere precisely for this reason, thats why techs blank off aircon pipes as soon as they are disconnected.
 
Re: Air con pipe

The filter/drier is built onto the side of the condenser in front of the cooling system radiator, they are quite awkward to do.
 
Re: Air con pipe

To be honest £200 is not a bad price for all the parts and labour and regas. You would be unlucky to have anything else fail on the aircon system, it is very rare for a compressor to have problems, sometimes the condensers can get stone holes in them but you need to be unlucky for that to happen as well as a broken pipe.
 
Re: Air con pipe

The compressor runs (well it makes a noise) so I'm hoping for not too many problems there but I've heard of seals drying out etc with lack of use so it's really try and see. Thanks for the advice!
 
Re: Air con pipe

NumanR said:
System wont work properly because you didnt change the filter/drier. Good to do jobs yourself but take the advice of people who know.
Hi

It is good to see another tech guy on the forum - I presume from your comments on this and other threads you know a lot about FIATS - are you a tech? Also nice to know where people get their info from :)
 
Re: Air con pipe

Just to point out that as well as fitting a new filter/drier the whole system will need to be vacuumed, although this should be done at the regassing stage.
 
Re: Air con pipe

In case anyone is interested there is U.S. A/C forum that really helped me out when I lived in the States (http://www.aircondition.com/wwwboard/). I am not sure they discuss Fiats, but it can be interesting reading. My compressor went out on my Chevrolet Blazer over there. The garage wanted more than $800 to fix it. I learned from talking to the techs on that site what needed to be done. I bought all the parts and had a friend who did home A/C installation do it. The whole thing cost me about $300. And, yes, every time you work on an A/C system you must flush the system of contaminants, replace the drier and filter. A/C is a highly dangerous thing to work on if you don't know what you are doing.

By the way, my A/C pipe went out a month or so ago in the third year, and was repaired on my extended warranty.
 
Re: Air con pipe

Great. Thanks for that. Most of us have no wish to become engineers but we'd like to be able to understand how it works, be able to spot and identify problems and be able to avoid being ripped off
 
Re: Air con pipe

Been giving my air-con a spin regularly over the winter period to help keep the seals in good nick and still the things died on its arse!

Know of any mobile air-con services in East Anglia?
 
Re: Air con pipe

Deckchair5 said:
Great. Thanks for that. Most of us have no wish to become engineers but we'd like to be able to understand how it works, be able to spot and identify problems and be able to avoid being ripped off
Not a problem. You would be amazed at how many people think if your A/C doesn't work, you just have to top it up with refridgerant/freon. The freon should never need topping up unless there is a leak from a component, in which case the source of the leak should be repaired first. Not sure if it is the case here, but in the States, you can buy it in cans over the counter. People see the refilling connector, hook it up and the can explodes. There are two connectors - high pressure and low pressure. It's not like putting air in your tyres, and connecting to the wrong connector can be disasterous. Adding freon is not that easy and should be left to someone who knows what they are doing.
 
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Re: Air con pipe

Yes I agree. Unless there's a bottle similar to the ones used in hospitals capable of withstanding 200psi then I'm not in the building! It's not a terrible amount of pressure, most airlines go higher than that but it's not good in a tin can!

I don't think there's anything you can buy off the shelves in the line of top ups now as the old stuff R14, is a bit ozone disastrous and stuck in the wrong orifice (ooo err missus!) isn't fun.

People in the USA have been dealing with it for years so I'm all for sharing information. I even caught myself eyeing over a domestic air conditioner in B & Q yesterday! Unheard of those things in the UK 10 years ago.

Ee yup Global warming!

Sorry Sparky, can't help with East Anglia a bit far from my neck of the woods but Yell is packed with mobile air con engineers.
 
Re: Air con pipe

Deckchair5 said:
Sorry Sparky, can't help with East Anglia a bit far from my neck of the woods but Yell is packed with mobile air con engineers.





Yes, never thought of yellow P's. Only ever think of it as 'Emergency bog roll'!
 
Re: Air con pipe

I think the Air Con pipe fiasco ought to have been a recall job. Just about every Stilo over 2 years old experiences it as far as I can see so there's no excuses. Hope yours hasn't gone Sparky ;)
 
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