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Crucial refrigerant charge on Prius just 1 ounce can make a big difference

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Technical Discussion' started by lech auto air conditionin, Sep 18, 2019.

  1. lech auto air conditionin

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    Crucial refrigerant charge on Prius just 1 ounce can make a big difference

     
  2. Pluggo

    Pluggo Senior Member

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    @lech auto air conditionin
    It’s always good to see your videos. Since the compressor in my 2012 got replaced 6 weeks ago, the car has been back 4 times while the dealer's guys tried to adjust the charge. Finally, just last week, they discovered metal filings or shavings left over from the first compressor. After checking service bulletins they decided to replace everything- the new compressor, evaporator, receiver-drier, lines, the whole works. Funny thing, the books say to replace the amount of oil that comes out of the compressor, but there was nothing published to say how much oil should actually be in the whole system. Today they’re trying to get that answer from the higher-ups. The extended warranty has it covered.
     
  3. ASRDogman

    ASRDogman Senior Member

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    I hope you are coming back! :)
    Nice video.
     
  4. lech auto air conditionin

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    When I hear the stories and for me it’s literally every day for the last 30+ years sometimes I laugh sometimes I cry some days I just put my head down and shake and walk away other days I might do hey palm smack to the fore head.
    All this is unnecessary because it was Taught in high school auto shop 101 your first junior year,
    OK then if somebody missed it because they didn’t have it in high school then it was in there ROC or other vocational training to enter the automotive field.
    Then again let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and they skipped all three of those chances at learning they took it in their college courses in automotive and it was taught the very first two or three weeks of the semester.
    I forgot to mention VICA I may have gotten the abbreviations mixed up but it’s a vocational training in automotive that’s nationwide probably started before I was in high school many decades ago and it still around strong today.
    But they could’ve gone to one of those big trade schools that you spend $15-$30,000 on for a nine month crash course.
    But last but not least how about the good old apprenticeship program that got squashed from the good old union days before the unions turn bad and lazy. Five years under a senior mechanic journeyman who had 10 to 15 years experience before he was allowed to train a new apprentice. On top of that you had to go to night school studying the topics you were being trained on while you’re working under the guidance eye of the journey man technician that your stall was right next to so he can keep an eye on you for the next five years.
    Nowadays the requirements to become an automotive technician or be the person who supposedly knows how to hire and train the right person. You have a pulse your warm blooded and you show up to work and wanna make a paycheck these are the top qualifications to become a technician today and using the word technician makes my stomach turn when shop owners who own the shop cannot even repair the car as they’re asking their mechanics to repair.
     
  5. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Sure is helpful we're having an air conditioning discussion at the end of Summer... Lol...
     
  6. lech auto air conditionin

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    For me there is no end of summer . Every day I wake up at 6 AM and look at my daily calendar schedule that is booked from morning tonight for the last 30+ years I turn down more billable hours then I do in a day. When it is winter it is extremely busy because of the rains in the car accidents and body shops and I’m continuously recovering and recharging all through the winter usually so busy I have to eat while I’m in my car and traveling between jobs. In the summer it’s exactly the same. On top of that I own a commercial HVAC business selling and installing large VFR and heat recovery commercial systems occasionally for friends or owners of businesses I’ll do their smaller residential but I prefer not to. 7/24/ 365 On call for emergency even in night hours for crucial applications like commercial industrial processes that can lose a quarter million dollars in product overnight if a system isn’t up and running so Automotive is just a play toy hobby. I don’t work for a living I just get the play with toys
     
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  7. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Well, auto shop in the 1980's at Palo Alto High School didn't get into servicing A/C systems, but we sure had fun "test driving" the donor cars we were working on. I'm lucky to still be alive, really...

    Anyways, was hoping if I read your whole rant I'd get a chance to learn about what went wrong and how do it right with the A/C repair situation you were referencing. We're on here to learn more... Please help! Can you explain how you'd do that repair? If their was metal in the lines from the compressor failure how do you take preventative measures to make sure this isn't a problem later? Do you blow out the lines with compressed air or something? I assume there's a preferred sequence for clearing out the line? Or is metal in the lines not really the actual issue?
     
  8. lech auto air conditionin

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    Later I will make more detailed videos from beginning to end they will probably all be subchapters of one long video I just don’t have time and I really need to eventually learn editing software and you also have to learn sound editing software to kill background noise that is possible to make better videos in noisy shops .
    Over the years I’ve released many pictures in my photo albums located on Prius chat and throughout the long explanations beneath all the photos in my albums most all of the information is contained to do a job properly it’s not all contained in one spot.

    My short little video clips that I release on YouTube channel will not be my main channel but most all of the information will slowly be contained in little short video clips scattered throughout all the videos until I start my main YouTube channel under my business name that will be more educational with more clean defined professional looking videos. But that will not be happening anytime soon for me to make a video or even respond cost me time during the workday. Like right now with my foot up on the bumper of a car I’m recharging while I’m writing up a work order and getting ready to leave to the next job .

    So go through all my information on PriusChat in my albums it’ll give you enough information to start start seeking your own information from manufacturers websites to book together enough information to become successful without comebacks and upset customers and loss of your time in a loss of your customers time.
     
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  9. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Thanks, I'll start googling when it's time to dive deeper into air conditioning... And yeah... I rebuild battery packs for friends and family who can't afford brand new packs so comebacks and upset customers and loss of your time is kinda how it works in that arena. You can only do so much when only a few hundred dollars is available for repairs to a pack, which is why just doing it for friends and family is my preference.
     
  10. Pluggo

    Pluggo Senior Member

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    BTW, the official answer regarding the amount of oil to be added when installing a whole new AC system is to add no oil at all, because the new compressor contains the exact amount of oil the system requires. We'll see.
     
  11. lech auto air conditionin

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    BTW but you would still have all the oil that is contain throughout the rest of the system and now you’re over oil charged if you just add a brand new compressor.

    This is compounded and even worse if prior to the care old compressor being removed the system is extremely low on refrigerant charge which is usually the case. Hey system running very low on refrigerant charge does not return the oil to the compressor and the vapor refrigerant is an excellent solvent carrier that picks up and removes more oil out of the compressor and it gets stuck and loaded back in the evaporator. This is why when the technician remove the old compressor and they follow the instructions to perform the oil balance procedure before they install the new compressor when they tipped the compressor upside down to measure the oil coming out of the old compressor usually nothing to very little comes out.

    And now the technician who doesn’t read fully and understand what he’s doing throws on this brand new compressor instead of having 3 ounces of oil in the system he now has is nearly 6 ounces of oil in the system.

    And this is where I get the compressor is finally coming back to one of my shops and I’m removing it after it locked up and snapped the scroll side or the shaft on the bearing . And this does not happen immediately it’s usually several thousand to many of miles afterwards it can take a beating and keep on ticking. Or the compressor makes a horrendous noise but works but does not cool properly because the refrigerant oil to oil ratio is too high therefore deluding down to quantity of refrigerant and oil does not absorb heat so they get poor performance out the dash.

    So either the initial technician who made this OOPPS and (doesn’t know what he doesn’t even know) . Or technicians who come in after him and does not know what the technician did in properly in the first place just starts guessing on what is wrong and parts start getting replaced and as the cost to the customer and wasted time and materials get waste over and over again trying to diagnose this problem.

    Other scenario is they just tell the customer if the customer asked why does it not get as cold as it used to?. I don’t know that’s just the way some of these Toyota AC systems are when you stick new compressors on them and the customer except that answer and goes along his merely way with a system that cannot get down below the 50° range unless it’s a very cold day. And when shops call me up for advice and tell me what they have done and I ask them the questions I need to ask I told them exactly what they just did and what needs to be done afterwards to fix the problem is rather expensive and very time-consuming unless they’re lucky enough that it’s a Prius after 2012 where the expansion valve is located outside in the engine compartment and they can remove it to flush out the evaporator easily to remove all the excess oil. If not it’s a seven hour dive of tearing apart the dash to remove the evaporator because the expansion valve is located on the inside. Congratulations !!! Mr. technician for just adding on a brand new compressor that contains all the oil it needs in the system.

    And here lies the problem were a little knowledge is dangerous. And those who are lazy and just read the first paragraph they come across believe it’s the all the information they need to know about a subject.

    Back in high school this was A/C101 you learned in class or in any class material or seminar. OMG If the owner of the shop actually paid money to send his technician back to Pennsylvania to M.A.C.S ( Mobile Air-Conditioning Society) or one of their yearly expos that contain all the main your manufactures Toyota for GM red dot for all the large heavy duty trucks and off-road commercial vehicles Cummings and Peterbilt Mack truck it’s a 3 to 4 day event every day classes and seminars from morning to evening crash course on learning.
    But again OMG The owners wine crying and complain that takes money and that takes time away from the shop that is billable hours I cannot see this being worth the expense. Many of you remember that old billboard poster back in was it the late 80s early 90s. With the young man who is looking like he’s going to college in the title was“ A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste“.
    Owners of many mechanical shops, Body shops body shops and some individuals fall right into that description of promoting the ongoing problem.

    Over the last 30 years it’s been a difficult and ongoing task but I’ve only been able to get a handful of technicians to come back to the mobile air-conditioning society expos yes they have to pay for a hotel room and they have to pay nearly the $400 for the registration fee and between flying the day before to get there and not getting back till the day after they may miss 4 to 5 days and all the boss can see Who’s paying for this. 32 to 40 billable hours at whatever their shop rate is that they are not collecting money this is usually the first thing they’re thinking. Here in San Francisco you’re cheap low end shop is $120 an hour up to usually around $180 an hour dealerships are even more.

    The few technicians that finally accompanied me back to the M.A.C.S conventions got their minds blown away by how big of an organization how many tools and how much training there was from morning tonight. When you meet college instructors who are attending the expo for their first time who have been instructors for years or just the base by what they did not know they thought they learned it by reading books and reading magazine articles and skimming through the Internet .

    So it comes down to there’s a little more than just opening a box replacing the compressor hook up a hose and squirt in a can it comes cold out of the dash so therefore it must’ve been done right.

    BTW what was that official answer ??? I think they’re just might be a tiny bit more to that .
     
  12. lech auto air conditionin

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    BTW The compressor replaced contained all the oil it needed.
     
  13. Georgina Rudkus

    Georgina Rudkus Senior Member

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    Basically, any liquid in the form or either oil or refrigerant is not compressible like a gas. The compressor will suffer from seal or piston ring failure, since they are the weakest points that fail when a liquid is introduced into a confined space. When efficiently used in the system, oil is dissolved or "missed" in the gaseous state of the refrigerant during the expansion cycle. Too much oil will likely mean that a sizeable amount would remain as a liquid when entering the compressor.

    Systems installed 15-20 years ago had larger amounts of refrigerants and bigger accumulators.

    Since the manufacturer incurs charges and penalties on the basis of how much refrigerant is used, the newer systems are less tolerant to extra oil and overcharging.
     
    #13 Georgina Rudkus, Sep 19, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2019
  14. Dxta

    Dxta Senior Member

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    Noooo! You have to add oil, because you've what we called, OIC(oil in circulation), and I think something about compressor oil rate itself or so. So, you got to calculate all the oils that would also be in circulation. What do you now do with other components like the evarator, condenser, and the drier? They all need some quantity of oil to make them function well. Relying only on compressor oil, would starve those components, and eventually cause compressor failure, due to increased heat generated.
    There's supposed to be oils returning back to the compressor at every cycles, and some retaining in those components.
     
  15. Dxta

    Dxta Senior Member

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    You're so right dude! That's why is obtainable in my country too. You get a lot of internet mechanics, who have decided, its not worth it to self advance, or seek for further knowledge in the field.
     
  16. Pluggo

    Pluggo Senior Member

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    Just to clarify things, the entire AC was replaced, every part ever had refrigerant passing through it. And, the amount of oil included inside the new compressor is supposed to be exactly the right amount for the whole system. It's been a journey.
     
  17. lech auto air conditionin

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    Having all the information makes all the difference in the world.
     
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  18. Dxta

    Dxta Senior Member

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    Are you saying that there won't be any need for addition of compressor, even if a whole system's components were replaced? What happens with compressor oil in other components? Isn't the factory oil in the compressor only the compressor and not for the system circulation of other components? Can you helped clarify if that's correct?
     
  19. ASRDogman

    ASRDogman Senior Member

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    When the system is new, oil is in the compressor. As it runs, it circulates throughout the system with
    the freon.
    If they flush it correctly, it will flush out any oil in the condenser, evaporator, hoses.....
    I wonder when they replaced all the lines, did they replace the expansion valve, condenser and evaporator?
    Or did he just flush them out? For the evaporator, he would have HAD to remove the expansion valve.
    Which I believe in on the evaporator, which means removing the dash, depending on the year! What fun.
     
  20. lech auto air conditionin

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    Yes. As ASRdogman said in his explanation.
    After 7hour to R&R the dash every one should replace the cheap expansion valve ( compared to the price of removing the dash) not worth the risk. But. Due to trying to save money or lack of knowledge that expansion valves do wear out , go out of calibration, can become partly restricted ont fully plugged.
    Look at this. All glass air conditioning you can see inside.

    This is what you see when you are in high school auto shop or your first class semester of your 2 1/2 year BA of BS for HVAC and commercial refrigeration. If you add in building automation degrees you will be in for another 1 1/2 years
     
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