Half price Air-Con recharge

rubble2

Just got this done at ATS Euromaster, you need to print off a voucher from their website and it reduces the price to £22.50.

Offer says it is limited to first 500 customers so if you are interested better not hang around

Rotor

A question for those in the know - do cars routinely need recharges or does it mean there is a leak which means a recharge will need redoing until leak is fixed?

rubble2

I am by no means an expert but I believe that air conditioning needs a recharge every 2-3 years due to loss of refrigerant. This happens even if there is no actual leak.

When the car is hooked up to the machine they use to recharge it, the first thing it does is a pressure test to check for leaks, if there is a problem with that due to a leaking system then the recharge aborts.

The symptoms I had that prompted me to get the system recharged was simply that the aircon was not as cold as it used to be and also an increase in noise from the car when the aircon was switched on

Strider590

Probably a good deal, just be wary of the technicians potentially trying to sell you brakes, tyre's, etc.......

rubble2

Strider590 wrote: »

Probably a good deal, just be wary of the technicians potentially trying to sell you brakes, tyre's, etc.......

I was expecting the hard sell, but in all fairness they just hooked the car up to the machine, let it do its stuff and when it finished I paid and left with no mention of any upselling.

Jo_F

We took our car into a dealer for it's regular service, the recharge and service on the air con was £29.95 all in.

client1_2

So how do you know, or ats know, when they have done 500. It could be a case of driving there, with a voucher that will all show the same number, and getting told "offer over"

rubble2

client1 wrote: »

So how do you know, or ats know, when they have done 500. It could be a case of driving there, with a voucher that will all show the same number, and getting told "offer over"

No idea, that is something you would have to ask ATS.

I suggest you do as I did and take the voucher with you when you go and ask before they carry out any work if the offer is still valid

rubble2

Jo_F wrote: »

We took our car into a dealer for it's regular service, the recharge and service on the air con was £29.95 all in.

I think that main dealers quite often offer a discounted price on Air Con recharge if carried out during a prebooked service. This however is a stand alone offer without having to pay inflated labour charges for a main dealer service

client1_2

rubble2 wrote: »

without having to pay inflated labour charges for a main dealer service

I beleive a trained chimp could carry out a regas, saying that its ATS so the chimps may not be trained.

Viper_7

Best way to maintain air-conditioning systems is to use them - even in winter.
If you don't use them, you'll be faced with a heft repair bill, as the system self lubricates in use. By use them, minimum of 15 minutes a week will keep it in good repair.
Shouldn't have to re-gas the systems for 2-5 years if they are regularly used and even then the performance will have only degraded marginally.
The price by ATS seems expensive. Most places only charge you the cost of the refrigerant used to top-up, but if your system is low, then It's not a bad price as it would be more costly to top-up if it was totally drained - but this would indicate bigger problems other than natural loss of refrigerant. No need to re-gas completely.