Air con blowing warm air 1 hour after recharge

Tinuel

Evening all,
I had an air-con refill/recharge done on on my Ford Focus this morning. When the recharge was complete the air con was working perfectly for about 30 mins or so until the mechanic left.

When I got back to the car an hour later, the air con was just blowing warm air and the air con does not seem to be working again.

The strange thing was that it went from working fine after the recharge to not working at all 1 hour later.
Is there anything you recommend or suggest as this is doing my head in and I wouldn't like to pay to have it looked at again without knowing for sure what it could be first?

Thanks,

custardy

You have a leak and all the gas has gone.
What did the mechanic do? Just fill it or run a check on the system?

Quentin

As it just worked for an hour you look to have a hole or leak through which your gas escaped

alderpoint

Agreed you have a leak.

Once you have a leak, it will never be the same again unless you spend ££££.

If you really want AC, trade in your current vehicle and get a new one with AC and never turn it off.

Tinuel

custardy wrote: »

You have a leak and all the gas has gone.
What did the mechanic do? Just fill it or run a check on the system?

I don't think he did a proper check, he was one of these mobile units and seemed to be rushing a bit, as he had plenty of jobs to do in this warm day.
He added a dye he said to detect the leaks at a later stage, but I don't think he ran a proper leak check. Basically he came in, plugged it to the machine, said that the gas was at 0, that was why the air con did not work, recharged and took off, all in about 20 minutes.

Tinuel

alderpoint wrote: »

Agreed you have a leak.

Once you have a leak, it will never be the same again unless you spend ££££.

If you really want AC, trade in your current vehicle and get a new one with AC and never turn it off.

Do you know how much roughly? It's a 1999 Ford Focus. I guess I will have to do without AC for a while if it's too expensive.

patman99

Get him to come back and do the job properly.
He should have run a pressure test as part of the pre-regassing in order to check for leaks.

custardy

Tinuel wrote: »

Do you know how much roughly? It's a 1999 Ford Focus. I guess I will have to do without AC for a while if it's too expensive.

Depends whats gone.
your system works so thats good.
Could be a split pipe. often its the condenser which is roughly £100 plus fitting & gas.
Edit: looking on ebay Ford units seem more like £50-£80

motorguy

alderpoint wrote: »

Agreed you have a leak.

Once you have a leak, it will never be the same again unless you spend ££££.

Chances are its a cracked pipe or joint somewhere.

I'd a 406 with this problem and the aircon regas people spotted the leak (KwikFit) as you could hear the gas escaping.

£20 for the part and a tenner to fit it.

arcon5

alderpoint wrote: »

Agreed you have a leak.

Once you have a leak, it will never be the same again unless you spend ££££.

If you really want AC, trade in your current vehicle and get a new one with AC and never turn it off.

:rotfl:
How MSE of you to suggest op buy a new car. Because that's really the best thing financially and logically. And of course new cars NEVER have a leak.

arcon5

Do you know if they put any UV dye in it to identify the source of the leak?