Air Conditioning Condense

[Bluesman]

That's an excellent piece of advice Mike.

Many thanks. Mike

[Barry1000]

Thanks for your advice, it's going back in on Friday next week to have a new back box exhaust fitted. I have spoken to them about about happened and the service manager said he wanted to look at the car with the technician and see why he said what he did. He still maintains that he is trustworthy and that there must be a leak. We shall see. I am a little concerned that the system may now. Be made to leak - but what can you do we shall see.

Barry

[Colin M]

Barry

Did the air con specialist put in any die in the fluid and then check with the ultra violet light?

If there was no die in the fluid in the first place, then nothing would show up green. I seem to remember when I had my Merc tested by a specialist in Birmingham he put some die in the fluid before doing the test and it did show up green, indicating a leak.

Colin

[Barry1000]

I took the LS 430 in to Lexus today and they checked the air con. They added dye( they had previously said that they had added it to check it last time it was in where as in fact they clearly had not done so) and checked for leaks. There were no leaks at all. What they did discover is that the back air con is blocked off. Presumably there was a problem with it previously when the previous owner had it. However it has worked quite adequately on the front end aall the time I have had it. They were not sure what volume of gas to put in and were concerned that overfilling it may cause freezing. I have not spoken directly to them yet but I thought you could check by ensuring the correct pressure? does anyone know if my theory is correct?

In any event they appear to have come clean but clearly were trying it on to the tune of £800. Overall not sure how an feel about continuing to have them service it. What do you think?

Barry

[bookend]

The trouble with garages they don't understand Air conditioning systems they just weigh the gas in.

Any air conditioning engineer will be able to charge the system by feel and pressure.

Never trust a car dealer with air con issues. I am a air con engineer by trade and have been told several times when they are trying to sell me an air con service that the systems all leak.

When I start to question them they allways back down.

Allways take it to a specilist air con company who know what they are talking about and never let a dealer or a company like kwik fit touch your air con as if they weight the gas in and it still doesn't work they don't have a clue.

[Malc]

Barry, clearly the Lexus dealer hadn't realised that the rear system had been blanked off ( a common issue ) to circumvent the near £1000 cost to repair that part of the system. Then assumed that all was not well with the simple check-up and probably just " thought " that you would wear an unprofessional £800 bill to try to fix it ......... without repairing the rear of the system even.

I wouldn't think much of the professionalism of the Lexus main dealer to be honest and would, at your age of car, find an indy who tbh, would save you lots of on-going service and repair costs cash and do at least as good a job.

Malc

[Colin M]

Barry

I have used a very good air con specialist in Birmingham (Great Barr). He works for himself and sorted air con problems on my previous 1980s Mercedes S Class. His diagnosis of the problems was spot on and I know he does all the air con work for a local independent Mercedes specialist who I use.

He has also re-gassed and checked out the system on one of my LS400s which was not providing much in the way of cold air but is now ice cold. All that it needed was a re-gas but he gave the system a good check over at the same time for leaks, operation of compressor etc.

He does mobile work but I do not know what sort of distances he travels. I have always taken the car to where he lives as it is only a few miles away. I can let you have his details if this is any help - pm me if you want them.

Colin