When you begin to notice that your air conditioning isn’t cooling your car as well as it should be, you should either take it in or check it out yourself. Here are some tips on what you should check to save a bit of money on repairs. Remember you should try and check the air conditioning out before you start noticing problems.
First the main reason that you may be having problems with your air conditioning is that you don’t have enough refrigerant in it. There may be many reasons why this has happened; the most common is that you’ve simply used up the resources. But it could be caused by a leak in the system. Checking the hoses and all seals that may not be fully intact anymore will help you figure out if this may be the problem. Even something as little as a small pinhole in the condenser or evaporator could be letting that refrigerant leak out slowly over time.
Some of the newer cars have a safety feature that will not allow the A/C to run if the refrigerant is low, but this isn’t the case in all cars. You should always make sure before you have more refrigerant added that there are absolutely no leaks in the system.
Another problem could be that the fuse that runs the condenser could be blown out, it’s a very simple fix to replace the fuse, something that pretty much anyone can do. Plus a fuse is a very inexpensive thing to replace. However, the condenser is another story. If you have run the A/C too much without refrigerant this will at times make the condenser become damaged or even ruined.
Needless to say this is not something that you want to have to replace. It could be expensive, and that’s why you should keep an eye on how you’re A/C is running. At the first sign of trouble you should check the above things, and not only that you should check some other things.
Go to an automotive store and purchase an A/C pressure gauge, this is an easy way to check the pressure of the system. It’s very easy to hook up and test to see if your system needs to be recharged, or add some more refrigerant. But again don’t just add in refrigerant, you should always check to make sure there are no leaks in the system. You should also look around the condenser to make sure there are no leaks in that area, or that grease has come out. Your condenser is very important and if it gets ruined or seizes up you will need to replace the whole thing at a very high cost.
You should be able to do random checks on the A/C to make sure that it is working properly, but at the first sign of trouble make sure you look into what might be causing the problem. Of course if you’re not positive you can take it to a professional.