Hi all, After 13 years, this summer my AC stopped working. Pump spools up fine but only blows warm air. Took it into the dealership, $200 for a "diagnostic" which they said they partially recharged the system and put in a dye... told me to wait a few weeks, run the AC as much as possible, and come back and they'd then see where the leak was. I suspect there is no leak and rather just after 13 years it's very slowly lost fluid... and I just got another 13 years now to go. AC now seems to work just fine and is blowing nice and cold. They insisted this is what would happen but I MUST come back. So my question is, do I need to actually go back? Is this common practice/how shops normally deal with this?
If you have TIS software or something similar you should be able to see the speed of your AC compressor You need to monitor that just to see that you're not getting into the running into Oblivion mode or the thing tries to pump nothing and it'll run 7,000 RPM or something crazy I don't know if TIS will code or orange up the over speed of the compressor or not If there's a if it can monitor it I would think it would let you know if it was over speeding when you run a health check it would turn that section orange or something maybe not.? Generally on a house unit inverter unit I can tell by listening to it it's just a little winding noise but the faster that winding noise frequency goes up the faster the compressor is running.
That's a contradiction. You can't lose it unless there is a leak. Some systems are freakishly tight and lose almost nothing over decades. But for many of us, we eventually get a stone chip in the condenser or a perished o-ring at one of the plumbing unions or (tremble in fear) an evaporator leak, and then you've got no gas left in the system. That's where the dye helps. Since the only way out is... out, you would next need to look over all of the hard lines, soft hoses, condenser and evaporator drain area to find traces of dye stain. This will jump right out with an ultraviolet lamp to flouresce the dye. Then you know where the leak is. Make the leak go away, then if you are confident you've done it, take it to a pro AC shop. Tell them what you've done. They should hook it up to a vacuum to prove that it fixed the leak, and this also removes remaining air and water contamination in the lines. After pulling a hard vacuum, they can charge it with oil and refrigerant gas. Most pro AC shops realize that there are special requirements* for recharging hybrid car AC. Doublecheck to be safe. *In a nutshell, hybrid AC and "everything else" AC each need their own kinds of oil, and the two types are incompatible so the shops have to maintain two sets of tools to prevent cross-contamination.
If there's a slow leak, you may have some time before you absolutely need to go back. Just to be clear- when you have a leak in the system, you're risking the compressor. The system will force the compressor to work harder and harder to make up for lost gas, until the thing breaks itself. Then it is a much more expensive fix. If the leak is super slow and you're planning to get rid of the car soon? Just let it ride. If you want to keep the car a while, you should deal with it sooner.
I do not plan on getting rid of the car. I plan to drive it until some kind of catastrophic failure prevents forward motion so I am sure I will have it for a long time to come. I am not surprised that after 13 years/375k km, it needed a recharge due to a very slow leak (everything leaks - nothing is truly liquid or air-tight). My question was more around the general process and what I was told at the dealership ("It will feel like your AC is working.. but don't be fooled! You must come back and spend more money!"). I asked why they simply didn't just recharge it and send me on my way, and they said that was not permitted in Ontario (?) and they had to do the dye thing and request I come back to have it further inspected.
Well the general theory is that if it got out, there's a leak. If there's a leak, you find it with dye. Once the dye leaks out, you need to actually perform the search before it washes off/fades away, otherwise there was no point in finding the leak. Because the refrigerant is a greenhouse gas, some places have laws about not refilling a system until it is thought to be actually fixed. Not sure what Ottawa has you locked into there. EDIT: adding: Keep in mind, you can just go to nearly any generic automotive AC shop. The Toyota dealer is an expensive choice.
Don't tell that to our old 2008 Corolla who blows SUPER cold air, still, and hasn't had a single A/C recharge service!!
Thanks - I thought I had read on here (PriusChat) that I had to specifically go to Toyota because something is "special" about the AC system, and that normal AC shops can't work on it. I'm inclined to call around and tell a 3rd party what's been done thus far and if they can pick up where Toyota left off, and see what they quote me. On my other car (diesel smart fortwo), I'd just load in a bottle of Duracool every spring in my driveway and that would last me the summer.
That was probably good advice in 2003, but this website has been here a long time and still gives those answers even though things have changed. Lots of shops know how to deal with hybrid AC now. I think that's a great plan of action. I'm impressed! That would wreck most modern Japanese-car systems after the 2nd or 3rd year.
