yes yur right, they are designed to be. but 99 percent of the time, they arent, they arent full proof, many techs and people have experienced this. they will slowly leak over time.

 

The tiniest pin hole can have a system evacuated in less than a few months. How can you explain early 90's cars with a/c still cold and never being touched? If they had a leak, freon would be gone.

 

jesus dude. all im saying is there not full proof, its happened to me twice in my integra and my old civic, no leaks in the system upon pressure testing it and then after 2 winters and not being used, shit was gone, pressure tested again and no audible or detectable leak, o-rings arent always a 100 percent seal, and threads arent as well so if your o ring has a small defect, your threaded parts arent going to hold it. all im saying is its not always an air tight fit that completely leak proof. and when i worked at honda i saw basically brand new cars less than a year old come back in cause there a/c wasnt working. no leaks or broken pieces, shit just escaped and needed recharging.dont ask me how cause i dont know, you think they are perfet and 100 % air tight, i dont.

 

unless he has passed the 609 test, which any trained monkey can do, i dont see him walking in and buying a can of R12.


generally its the ones with the other compressor design, i forget the name but its not the Sanden units. they leak out the shaft when stationary for long periods of time. one of the main reasons i tell my customers to make sure they run the defroster in the winter on a daily basis.

r12 has much larger molecules. when r134a was introduced in the early 70's, this was quickly discovered and changes in hoses and seals were attempted. it wasn't till the late 80's that it was discovered that making a hose with a barrier in it would stop the gas from seeping out. hence the term barrier hose. changes were also made in the lubricant requirements, and it was also found that the condensers and evap. cores worked much better with smaller ports.

ask any experienced AC man, and they will tell you that a system that had never leaked when it had r12 in it, would leak like a whore when converted to r134a. its also the reason that there are multiple methods of leak detection that have to be used on a vehicle to correctly diagnose a system, even if it just comes in for a performance check (persuant to section 609 regulations from the EPA)


but, any fucking moron can walk into Autozone and buy cans and cans of r134a and attempt to fix their own A/C system. dont even get me started on the sealant kits they sell....

 

i've got a prob with my ac as well. recharged the system, the compressor kicks on and the idle changes and won't blow cold air. any ideas on this?

 

it could be multiple things, the best thing to do is have a qualified tech look at it and see what is wrong, you will need either a damn good tech with calibrated temp. hands (works great, and most of the time more accurate than looking at gauges ) or a good set of gauges.

 

did you evacuate the system before hand? also was the freon from a new container? if not, then it could be contaminated. ive run into that problem before

 

i actually had a shop fill it up. there was nothing at all in it. the car had previously been converted to 134a. i dunno shit about ac systems and they wanted an ass load to diagnose the prob so i didn't bother at the time.