Time to get the A/C Season in shape for summer. Don’t want to be stuck in the heat without AC.

Service your A/C System every 60K miles. Take it to a licensed repair facility and have them evacuate and recharge your system. During this they will replace the ac compressor oil which is key to long life.

A couple of tips if you need to replace any ac components;

1. Always buy new. You can get lots of new A/C Compressors here.
2. Always change the drier and orifice tube (if applicable)
3. Always flush the system and put in new oil and new freon.

A/C systems are violent and difficult, not worth cutting corners on. Should be done by a licensed mechanic or someone who has worked on these.

So I’ve had some people ask how does the ac compressor system breaks down. Below are a couple of useful charts and diagrams that will probably explain it better than I can.

The air conditioning compressor turns liquid freon into gas freon. The condenser cools the gas down into a liquid, sending it to the evaporator. The evaporator turns cool liquid into cool air, removing the heat from the cabin. The warm liquid goes back to the compressor. Then it starts all over again

Some keys to the system are that the size of the fins on the ac condenser directly affect how well it performs. If those fins are not working very well then the gas will never get very cold and performance will suffer. We have done lots of articles about condensers, so feel free to do a search and find those.

Check out the diagrams for more info.