How To Know Why A/C Recharge Kits Damage Cars

The “heat dome” that recently put a scorching lid over most of the country certainly made life miserable for San Antonians. Typically, you emerge from the oasis of cool comfort provided by your home, office, or shopping mall into the blazing, humid heat. You reach your car, and the first thing you do is to start it up and turn the air conditioning full blast.

Why Doesn’t My Car’s A/C Work?

But your car just isn’t cooling down quickly. In fact, it takes quite a while for it to start cooling off. You wonder what could be wrong and then you see an ad for an inexpensive home DIY A/C recharge kit. “Hey,” you say to yourself, “that looks pretty easy.” You think by adding more refrigerant to your AC unit you’ll solve the problem and save a ton of money by not taking your car to the shop.

Let us set you straight. This is a very, very bad idea.

The manufacturers of these home A/C recharge kits make it look simple to recharge your air conditioning system yourself. But don’t be fooled! You could literally ruin your entire A/C system by using these products. Here’s why.

Leaking Refrigerant

If your car’s A/C refrigerant is low, it means there is a leak somewhere in the system. Just putting more refrigerant to replace the lost refrigerant doesn’t fix the underlying cause. Topping off the A/C refrigerant is like adding new oil on top of the dirty oil in your crankcase. It just temporarily masks the problem. The fact is, you need to evacuate the existing refrigerant completely and replace it with new refrigerant for the system to work properly.

Leaking A/C refrigerant is also an environmental hazard. The old type of refrigerant, commonly known as Freon, was banned many years ago because it depletes our planet’s protective ozone layer. Merely adding more refrigerant into an already leaking system just continues to allow harmful refrigerant to continue leaking into the atmosphere.

Refrigerant & Water Don’t Mix

Environmental considerations aside, there are even more concrete, down-to-earth reasons why manual A/C recharge kits are hazardous. These kits can allow contaminants to enter your vehicle’s A/C system. They also can allow water to enter the system which is particularly damaging. When the water and refrigerant mix, they create caustic chemicals that can wreak serious internal havoc by corroding metal and deteriorating essential parts.

Do you know what kind of refrigerant your car’s A/C system uses? These cheap manual A/C recharge kits could use a refrigerant that’s not compatible with your vehicle. Plus, mixing different types of refrigerant can also cause irreparable damage to your A/C compressor and other vital parts.

Now if this wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse.

Stop-Leak Chemicals Can Ruin Your A/C Unit

Many of these off-the-shelf manual A/C recharge kits contain a stop-leak sealer which they claim will fix any leaks. Let’s be clear. While this may temporarily stop the leak, the chemicals used in the sealer will gunk up the A/C’s hoses, pump, and compressor eventually leading to catastrophic failure of the entire system.

Let Our Experts Handle It

So here’s the bottom line: You can save yourself a few dollars and run the risk of permanently damaging your car’s A/C unit costing you hundreds of dollars to replace. Or, you can do the smart thing and get your A/C unit professionally serviced by trained automotive technicians who have the skills, experience, and the tools to do the job correctly.

And that just simply makes sense, doesn’t it? Today’s modern A/C systems are complex pieces of engineering that require expert attention. That’s why we encourage you to take your Ford to our Northside Ford Auto Repair, Tire & Service Center in San Antonio.

Let our pros inspect your Ford’s air conditioning unit to diagnose any possible problems. Often, these problems can be traced to worn belts or leaking hoses. Most importantly, we only use Genuine Ford Parts to service or repair your Ford’s A/C unit.

Don’t own a Ford? No problem. We service most makes and models of automobiles at our San Antonio auto repair facility. We also make it easy for you to schedule auto repair service online.

Don’t take chances with your car’s air conditioning this summer. Trust it to the automotive service experts at your preferred Ford new car dealership in San Antonio, TX, Northside Ford.