Air Conditioning Service

If any component of your vehicle’s air conditioning unit is damaged, it can turn your cool car into a furnace during the summer months!One of our trained air conditioning specialists will inspect your car’s air conditioner, all lines, the evaporator and the compressor for leaks and wear.

The air conditioning unit in your vehicle operates similarly to a refrigerator. It’s designed to move heat from the inside of your car to the outside.

Your vehicle’s air conditioning unit has six major components:

  • Refrigerant: carries heat. In modern cars, refrigerant is a substance called R-134a. Older cars’ refrigerant is called r-12 freon, which is more expensive and difficult to find than R-134a.
  • Compressor:circulates and compresses refrigerant.
  • Condenser: changes the refrigerant from gas to liquid and expels heat from the car.
  • Expansion valve (or orifice tube): a nozzle that simultaneously drops the pressure of the refrigerant liquid, meters its flow and atomizes it
  • Evaporator:transfers heat to the refrigerant from the air blown across it, cooling your car
  • Receiver or Dryer: filters your vehicle’s refrigerant and oil, removing moisture and other contaminants

When you start your vehicle’s air conditioning system, the compressor works by putting the refrigerant under pressure, sending it to the condensing coils, which are generally in front of your vehicle’s radiator. The condenser expels hot air to outside the car, cooling the air within the vehicle. When this happens, the refrigerant is cooled, and it changes form a gas to a liquid, which then passes through the expansion valve and to the evaporator.

Once the evaporator receives the liquid-state refrigerant, it loses pressure and cools the remaining liquid. The vehicle’s blower moves air across the evaporator and into the vehicle’s interior. If you keep your air conditioning unit turned on, the refrigerant goes through this cycle continuously.

Your vehicle’s air conditioning issue could be as simple as topping off refrigerant or replacing a valve. When your air conditioning unit is not working as it should, bring your vehicle to Shaffer’s Auto Body.