Air conditioning is a sealed system. It does not use refrigerant up, so a car that needs a recharge every summer is not low on gas, it has a leak, and topping it up is renting the repair rather than making it. We find where it is going first. It also matters in January: your defroster runs the A/C to dry the air, which is why a dead system means a windshield that will not clear.
Vent temperatures and system pressures measured on gauges, which is what tells us whether the problem is refrigerant, a compressor, a blend door or airflow.
Dye and electronic testing to find where it is going, so the recharge is the end of the job rather than an annual appointment.
The expensive parts, tested before being condemned, including the condenser that sits at the front of the car and takes every stone off Fenkell.
Evacuated and recharged to the vehicle’s specified weight, plus the blower, cabin filter and vents when the complaint is weak air rather than warm air.
A heater core, a thermostat stuck open, or a blend door that has given up. In a Michigan January that is the same repair as a windshield you cannot clear.
Because it is leaking. A sealed system does not consume refrigerant, so an annual top-up is paying for the same repair over and over without ever making it. We would rather find the leak and quote you the fix.
We can, and sometimes on an older car with a slow leak that is genuinely the sensible choice. We will tell you what we found and what a proper repair would take, and then it is your call rather than ours.
More than people expect. The defrost setting runs the air conditioning compressor to pull moisture out of the air, so a dead A/C system usually shows up as a windshield that takes far too long to clear in December.
A recharge with a dye test is the cheap end. A leaking hose or a perished O-ring is modest. A compressor or condenser is the expensive end, and that is the whole reason we test before selling anything: you should pay for the part that failed, not the part that is easiest to reach.
It depends how much refrigerant your car holds and which type it takes, and the newer R-1234yf costs several times what the older R-134a does. We will tell you which one is in your car and what it comes to before hooking anything up. And remember that a system needing a recharge at all is a system with a leak.
Walk-ins welcome six days a week. The inspection is free whether or not you have the work done.
