AC Issue...

Mine is the opposite, passenger side was not cool for awhile and now its moved to drivers side...

 

Yes, perhaps I wasn't clear but in the beginning the drivers side will be coolest then each vent will get progressively warmer as you move to the passenger side. Then eventually they will all stop putting out cool air.

 

OK, took my truck to a local shop that specializes in the 1234 stuff. When he hooked up his machine to my truck he got a reading of 12% contamination in my refrigerant oil. The machine would not let him do anything because of that. He wanted to know what I did...?

I didn't do anything. After a little thought process though I remembered My 20 yr old grandson borrowed my truck for a couple days. We had a conversation last night and I found out that he tried to help out his Pap with help from an Autozone guy and they tried to put the old stuff in the truck (YIKES) he said that they couldn't get it to work after a couple of attempts. I guess they got a little in there anyway thus the contamination.

The shop told me his machine will not allow him to pressure test, clean or add refrigerant because of the contamination. He stated he never has seen anything like this. Does this sound legit to you guys? How screwed am I?

I mentioned the kit on Amazon that was linked in another thread (cleaner, sealer and coolant pkg) and he said he would look at it and if it was safe he would do it for me. Should I go this route, can't live without air conditioning. Oh, and they found the leak from a visual inspection, it's up top out front by the grill. Told me to order the seal from Toyota and bring it with me when I return with the kit.

 

Find a place with a dedicated machine to recover contaminated refrigerant. Unfortunately, you'll probably find someone who says they have one but just takes the vehicle out back and opens her up.

 

Yep, he said he could do that but wasn't sure about the machine recharging the system...might still get contamination reading, IDK.

 

Recover the refrigerant. Flush the entire system forwards and backwards. Change the filter/drier. Vacuum for an hour or so. Should be fine after that

 

Also, what "old stuff" did your grandson put in? R134A? Maybe he used stop leak.

 

Yes, the R134, thats what the auto zone guy told him to use...

 

I thought the fittings didn't match up?

 

They don't. That's what's confusing

 

He said they had a hard time trying to make it fit and that they got it on for a bit and tried to release the coolant but it did not sound like anything was going in so they took it off and wrote it off as a futile attempt. That being said they must of forced something if it was 12% contaminated...? If its impossible to do how is this guys machine reading it that way?

 

Go someplace else. This guys mind is made up. There really no way you can contaminate his machine after he recovers with his other machine then flush, then vacuum with a hand held vac pump (or even use the charging machine's vac pump cause that exhaust goes to atmosphere) then charge from a virgin bottle through the good machine. Would still change the filter/drier.

 

Why was he adding R134 if like you said nothing wrong with the truck ?

 

Air conditioning was blowing less cool as the summer heated up...

 

Just a final update...the shop that would not or could not evac the system because of contamination took care of me. I guess he opened up the system somehow and let the refrigerant out, fixed the leaky seal and filled back up with my refrigerant kit purchased on Amazon.

Blowing extremely cold out of all 4 dash vents like it was brand new! Couldn't be happier, we just had a stretch of low 90's with very high humidity.