Auto Repair: Why Your Car Doesn't Have A/C
Your car's a/c is important and when it doesn't work there are a lot of reasons why. Heres a list of what makes up your a/c unit and what your mechanic can check when it quits working.
When the air conditioning unit of your car goes out you can begin to understand what killed the pioneers trekking across the United States to better lives. It wasn’t bad water,
a lack of food or hostile attacks from other culture groups; it was a lack a cool air on a hot summer day. You don’t really appreciate your car air conditioning unit until you don’t have it anymore.
There are several reasons your car can be blowing hot air when you turn on the air conditioning unit and almost none of them have to do with your car having a personal grudge against you because you don’t wash it enough. What it comes down to in the end is an auto repair bill looms in your not too distant, but decidedly hot future.
Your mechanic will check several things when they look at your air conditioning system, including your car’s Freon levels. Freon-, which is what most people are familiar with as the mysterious source of coolness inside their refrigeration units and air conditioning units, has been banned and replaced by a chemical compound called R-134A. This new refrigeration chemical has been deemed by the powers that be to be less harmful to the environment and is a term you should at least be familiar with so your mechanic doesn’t think you’re a total idiot when you ask what a robot named R-134A has to do with your car’s a/c not working properly. If your air conditioning unit lacks this vital but apparently less deadly chemical compound (at least compared to Freon) than your car’s ac unit will blow hot air at you and not the cool soothing air you are seeking on a hot summer day.
The most common problem with a faulty a/c is a lack of refrigerant gas or R-134A and that can be caused by a leak somewhere in your system. Your mechanic can run a vacuum test for this and try to find if you have a leak and if so where it is so they can fix it.
If your coolant levels are good, and there are no leaks to be found, rest assured there are still plenty of other things that your mechanic can find wrong with your car’s a/c that will warrant an auto repair expert to correct.
Your mechanic can check the other components to your air conditioning unit including components that sound like gangbanger names-“the compressor”, “the condenser”, and “the evaporator”. If all of these a/c components are running the next step is to look at the rest of your system including the thermal expansion valve and the drier.
Once your mechanic narrows it down you should be able to get your auto repair under way and drive home in a nice and comfortable air-conditioned vehicle just in time for the next heat wave to hit.
