940 air con recharge

[Vintoni]

Hi all

Just had my time well and truly wasted by Kwik Sh*t. Should have known. Apparently they can't do a recharge because my car was made prior to 1999 but didn't tell me until I'd got it all booked in and driven to the garage...

I've just replaced the condenser and dryer and need to get the system pressure tested and recharged. What's the going rate? What kind of price can I expect from an independent garage?

Cheers

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Vintoni

Hi all

Just had my time well and truly wasted by Kwik Sh*t. Should have known. Apparently they can't do a recharge because my car was made prior to 1999 but didn't tell me until I'd got it all booked in and driven to the garage...

I've just replaced the condenser and dryer and need to get the system pressure tested and recharged. What's the going rate? What kind of price can I expect from an independent garage?

Cheers

On what crieteria do they base the 1999 cut-off?

[Vintoni]

God only knows. I got there and the guy calls me over to the car and tells me they don't have an adapter for the 940 system to recharge it. I drive home and call Kwik Sh*t. I have a moan and they book me into a different branch. Will it be the same story? I ask... The woman on the phone puts me on hold and five minutes later tells me that no branch can recharge my system because the car was made before 1999. At this point I had already wasted more than enough time. I was starting to get p*ssed off and couldn't be @rsed with it any more so I gave up.

[360beast]

They probably are too thick to work out that it is a one port system and just need to tell the machine that this! I used the same machine to recharge gas in Bentley's and Roller's that had been converted to R134a from the 1950s up to 2015ish that I used to recharge my 940, all I had to do was go to the system settings and tell it I was charging a one port system hooked it up, told it how much refrigerant it needed, stuck it on auto and walked away... worked lovely for a day until it all leaked out of the clamp on the A/C condensor.

Making up rubbish to fob you off, do they charge a set price? If so they probably didn't want to loose money as it takes about 950 grams so about £80 of R134a.

[Forrest]

Probably better off getting it done at an independent garage or a/c firm. They are more likely to know what they’re doing anyway. I cannot think of anything that Kwik Sh!t excel at other than possibly upselling and wasting people’s time.

Does 950g of R134a really cost £80 now? I’ve got an unused 12kg cylinder of it somewhere I’ve had for years. Sounds like it’s done better than some of my stock market investments!

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by 360beast

They probably are too thick to work out that it is a one port system and just need to tell the machine that this! I used the same machine to recharge gas in Bentley's and Roller's that had been converted to R134a from the 1950s up to 2015ish that I used to recharge my 940, all I had to do was go to the system settings and tell it I was charging a one port system hooked it up, told it how much refrigerant it needed, stuck it on auto and walked away... worked lovely for a day until it all leaked out of the clamp on the A/C condensor.

Making up rubbish to fob you off, do they charge a set price? If so they probably didn't want to loose money as it takes about 950 grams so about £80 of R134a.

I think Luke has hit the nail on the head but many cars since 1999 take a similar amount of R134a - Fik-Wit (substitute the first "i" for a more appropriate vowel if you like ) specialise in improving the performance of the A/C system - in other words a small top-up of gas (20-40%) to bring performance back within spec.

As such, vaccing a system down to remove the condensation/moisture, adding fresh PAg oil for the compressor, leak sealer and/or detector fluids and then fresh refrigerant (the full amount) is going to take a lot more of their time (about an hour) and definitely a lot more refrigerant than they budget for so it could be that as well.

Originally Posted by Forrest

Probably better off getting it done at an independent garage or a/c firm. They are more likely to know what they’re doing anyway. I cannot think of anything that Kwik Sh!t excel at other than possibly upselling and wasting people’s time.

Does 950g of R134a really cost £80 now? I’ve got an unused 12kg cylinder of it somewhere I’ve had for years. Sounds like it’s done better than some of my stock market investments!

Highlighted the most important bit ^^^^^ and totally agree. You might pay a bit more than the £50 Fik-Wit advertise but see the reasons above, not to mention they will almost certainly know what they're dealing with. I'd suggest an A/C specialist, better to have it done once properly than 2 or 3 times badly! Cheaper in the long run!

The price of R134a has been on the up thanks to the new "Solstice" R1234 that is about £200 for a ~1kg fill simply because of supply and demand.

More people are using their A/C now they actually know how to use it and others getting it working on neglected cars again.

The general demand for R134a seems to be down so the price is up even with this but here's the real kicker with Solstice - it needs refilling (on average) every 2 years because the molecules are smaller so has a greater tendency to leak out!

[Vintoni]

Absolute C-Units. Stuff like this really p1sses me off.

I'll see if there are any specialists near me.

Thanks guys.