Air conditioning need help

If the system has a leak it is likely to have some air and moisture in it. If you want it as cold as factory (around 40f at the ducts) you want it vacuumed out and a new charge weighed in. You want an electronic leak detector to hopefully find the easy leaks. It is not true that an old car leaks enough to need a recharge unless there is a hole. This is a very complicated electric compressor, variable speed that can't be charged accurately with old school methods. As you suspect, too much will cost you several thousand for a compressor, condenser and txv. Be smart.

 

After my new evap installed I measured right on the edge of 39-40F at the vents. It was wicked cold. The G2 has an excellent ac system.

Not so much is it cold but is it pulling water out. Water should be coming out of the drip hose really good.

 

At what outside temperature and humidity? Car ACs usually manage about a 40F difference between outside air and vent air in recirc mode. More for a vehicle with a huge motor and condenser, but that isn't the case with a Prius. So sure, <=40F at the vent at 70F outside, since that is only a 30F difference and well within the system's capabilities. What do you measure when it is 100F outside and 50% humidity?

Also, these tests are usually supposed to be done in the shade, but that is not very informative for the real world, which is more on the highway and less driving in tunnels and parking structures.

I find that when our Prius is in the sun on a hot day the windshield becomes super hot to the touch. Not sure about the back window. The side windows are not as hot, and the roof and floor are not warm to the touch. So I think the AC is spending most of its effort removing the heat pouring in from the windshield. Tint it? Not so much, the 2022 CA tint laws only allow 4" of tint at the top of the windshield, which wouldn't make a lot of difference given that long windshield. There is no such thing as a "dual pane" windshield, as far as I know, but insulating that big sheet of glass one way or another seems like it could be a big win for comfort.

 

40f is possible on 105f days with a proper leak and contaminate free system. Obviously if your car is 130f because it has been sitting in the sun for hours, you can be comfortable in five minutes but it may take twenty or thirty minutes to reach a 40f duct temp as the entire interior mass has to be brought down in embedded energy. In Central Texas the best startup solution is garage parking followed by shade with maximum allowed tint while in use. The Prius full electric compressor is capable of close to 15,000 btu even when the engine has switched itself off. If you have ever "topped it off" there is a leak. Owned Prii since 2008 and never added refrigerant. No leaks. Gas diffusion through hoses is theoretical in practice and could take twenty years to lose a fraction of an ounce. Leaks in the condenser from rocks are common as are leaks in the evaporator from corrosion. But coil leaks are not a given.

 

I I used to have some Lou Mar film back in the early '90s on my front windshield and my back glass and it would make over a 30° difference on my dash top temperature which was back in the days of cars dash tops splitting like crazy and they were costly remember the dash cap and all that nonsense I'm thinking of putting the modern equivalent on my 2013 anyway. The two was real cold with the windows like they are is fine The three is cold and would be real good with a 30° drop in the front windshield would be great

 

Very big cross section on this windshield If no tiint on the car ac will struggle. So hot out now.

I had very dark quality tint and sitting in the sun. Very hot out. When driving the ac was so cold could not run it at full cold had to back off the temp setting a little.

BUT....I had a new NPR battery so that makes a difference in this car. If your battery is whooped the ac system may not work 100% efficiently.

 

It’s not so much the color of the tent that blocks the IR wavelength infrared.
One of the first things that went onto my brand-new 2012 Prius was 3Ms product called Crystaline. By now they probably have a better new improves product you can actually put it on clear and have no tent and it blocks a big percentage of the infrared wave length that is the light source we don’t see with our eyes that actually strikes the dark surfaces in the vehicle and converts back into heat energy within the vehicle.

So I have the clear tent on the front windshield California has some tough laws supposedly you cannot even have clear tint on your front windshield nothing at all I can tell them where they go stick their law book where the sun don’t shine

then I have only the lightest tint on the side windows and back that you cannot differentiate with some of the modern vehicles that have that green or slightly colored factory tint that is allowable.

this reduces the heat load that is generated inside the car by the radiant heat from the sun giving your air-conditioning more reserved capacity to cool down the interior

and if you’re one of those people who are allergic to the sun or very sensitive that the actual sun Raise when hit the skin on your arm actually hurts and burns like my wife is extremely white and has that problem

you also have to watch out for some of the aftermarket windshield replacements because many of the cheap windshields do not have the ingredients that were added to the glass to cut back the infrared IR spectrum and after the installation of such a large windshield with no reduction in IR radiation from the sun the interior of the vehicle gets hotter and the factory air-conditioning cannot keep up on hot days with a strong sun load

 

That's what lumar film had late '80s I had it on a bunch of Toyotas then made a huge difference this is way before the Prius

 

They still make it, but the highest visible light transmission possible is only 72% for the "90" product.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00016683/?preselect=3293807541

Apparently there is a federal standard which says that >70% of visible light must pass through the windshield. But the CA Tint laws don't seem to allow anything below the top 4". One would imagine that it would be possible to make a product which blocks only IR and UV, but so far I have not found it. Although this site mentions one that has 80% VLT.

New Legal, Clear Heat-Blocking Front Windshield Film! | T&T TINTING SPECIALISTS, INC.

 

Interesting I guess it was not a big seller because I have the translucent Crystaline 3M product on my front windshield. Because my wife suffered from night blindness she doesn’t see good at night we did not put the tinted on the front windshield we put the clear

they do make clear products that block out the IR wave lane spectrum I guess finding them must be the problem I guess when I finally get a new vehicle maybe I’ll have a hard time finding it but it definitely made a difference.

on my own personal vehicle I would just put the lightest tent I could find I don’t care about the California law. Compared to the 1960s and 1970s if you notice how bright the new headlights are nowadays even if you did have the slightest tint on your front windshield you would never know it with today’s headlights.

 

I want to make my Toyota look like the old Ford Taurus and sable and a lot of the old Ford cars in the '90s look when they came at you kind of a red hue coming off the windshield like the windshield was tinted with solar cool burgundy color instead of solar cool bronze or something along those lines if anybody knows about tent and PPG solar cool they might have a clue of what I'm talking about I thought that was kind of neat remember the old Ford police cars in the '90s late '90s the Taurus SHO when the car came at you you saw like this red burgundy color mirror until you got right on top of the car then you could see through the glass the windshield that is this was only on the windshield I think

 

Plenty of clear glass has very effective ir/uv protection. Some Prii windshields come with it. Almost all home and building windows reject radiation/uv based heat. Its a low-e coating layer generally applied to one of the two inside layers of the glass. In the south the low-e layer is on the outside pane to reject heat. In the north its on the inside pane to retain heat. These low emission coatings are also applied to advanced window films which can be clear but are usually tinted. Some films are also polarized.

 

Those Fords didn't have a "tint". They had a metallic film that was part of the windshield. It was a front windshield defroster - kinda like a rear defroster grid but without any visible lines.

When in use, all the the alternator's output went directly into the film, at 30-60V +.

Melted ice and snow pretty quick- when it worked.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I just want the look no defrosting needed for me . I'm thinking PPG make something like solar cool bronze in a film like material . It's very back burner today. If it came reddish or even the bronze can work

 

Some cars have very bright headlights. My 2007 Prius - not so much. The headlight lenses are reasonably clear for its age, but they still scatter enough light to make a difference. This is the "can I see what my car is lighting" question, rather than the "can I see that other car's headlights". The latter goes both ways, with some cars too bright to look at, and others so dim, or misaligned, that they are barely visible.

The illegal tint tickets start small ($25) and then go up rapidly to many hundreds per ticket on subsequent tickets.

I don't really understand the reason for the front windshield tint limit. I cannot tint my windshield. I can and do wear sunglasses and it is perfectly legal. Those sunglasses are very dark, and also polarized. (Not a fashion statement, required after cataract surgery.) Those sunglasses are WAY darker than anybody (sane) would tint their windshield. Of course I don't wear them at night, and the tint would always be there. But wait, vision is logarithmic for intensity, so your eye isn't really going to care about 100% VLT vs. 70% VLT under normal circumstances, even at night. I suppose in pitch black conditions (heavy cloud cover, at night, headlights only) it might make a difference. No, I think the tint restriction has some other basis, like cops needing to be able to see into cars.

But back to those polarized sunglasses. The light from the sky is polarized, even after bouncing off a windshield. Consequently I can only see poorly in many situations through the windshield during the day. You know who else wears polarized sunglasses? Cops.

I'm still looking for a perfectly clear (>95% VLT) IR blocking film. Technically that might be "tint", but no cop would ever be able to detectx that. Probably I should just write to 3M, if anybody makes such a thing, it would be them.

 

That was a metallized tent that was actually a metal film had a special process to apply it like expensive sunglasses.

The problem with medalized spider applied film on glass or plastic tints that had actual metal whether it be gold or silver or any other metal is that it kills cellular signal.

so if you have a really good metallized film glass you’ll notice one or two bars dropped from your cell phone signal and if you already had down to one bar he’ll notice you have no signal at all like trying to use your cell phone when you walk into a giant meat freezer that is two sheets of steel or aluminum with insulation 360° around you the cell signal drops out