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Costs to service A/C

Hi:

We have a '97 Outback. Last Sunday we went for a five hour drive, (round-trip) from Southeastern Michigan to Indiana. The weather was quite hot. For the first couple hours the A/C worke great. But after a while it stopped blowing cold. It barely gave ANY relief from the heat. So early Monday I made an apointment to have it looked at at the dealer (on Wednesday.) Guess what? later that day it was working fine again. What gives? I thought that is may have been running low and needed a charge. Now I don't know what to think. Ideas? Thanks.

Reply to
Marshall
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Hi,

I'm with the others: low charge, combined with any noticeable humidity, will ice up your evaporator coils. No airflow goes thru the iced up coils, so the A/C "doesn't work." When they thawed, the A/C worked again. Shouldn't be hard to diagnose or expensive (assuming it's an H-134 system) to top off the refrigerant charge.

Good luck,

Rick

Reply to
Rick Courtright

--Update-- Two things I forgot to mention in my original post is that during the trip at one point we noticed what looked like smoke coming out of the vent for a few seconds (no odor) and there was a noticeable decrease in the air flow pressure. The car was serviced yesterday. They determined the pressure was low. The reading was 13oz, and should have been 23oz. The total bill came to $163.10 This includes an oil change (using "PK13" Legacy oil.) Labor rate of$80hr. Does that sound about right? Or is that a rip-off? :(

Reply to
Marshall

No, I went to Walmart and bought a kit for ~$15 that had a can of freon/oil mix and a gauge.

Tom

Reply to
Tom H

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