Oil for car air conditioners - a choice according to all the rules
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Many motorists themselves are trying to solve the issue of the performance of the air conditioning system. In this case, you definitely need to decide which oil for auto-conditioners to choose in order to avoid breakdown in the future.
Oil for air conditioning - how not to harm?
Nowadays, in car dealerships there is a wide range of oils for air conditioners in cars. The selection of this component must be taken with responsibility, since this is far from a trifle, as it seems at first glance. It is worth noting that in car air conditioners, unlike air conditioners of other refrigeration systems and installations, they use aluminum tubes and rubber seals for fittings, which, if mishandled or filled with the wrong composition, can lose their physical properties and fail.
If you accidentally mix two different types of oil, it will inevitably cause flocculation in your car's lines. And already this problem can be solved only in a car service, and such diagnostics and cleaning will cost the driver a pretty penny. That is why it is so important to know all the subtleties in the operation of an air conditioner.
Synthetic and mineral - we decide on the basis
There are two groups of oils for air conditioning systems - synthetic and mineral compounds. It is not so difficult to determine which one is poured into your car air conditioner, but this business requires some subtleties. All cars that were produced before 1994 run on R-12 freon. This type of freon is mixed with Suniso 5G mineral oil.
Cars manufactured after 1994 work only on R-134a freon, which is used in combination with synthetic compounds PAG 46, PAG 100, PAG 150. These brands are also called polyalkyl glycol. R-134a brand freon oil cannot be mineral, only synthetic. In practice, there are rare cases when in 1994 cars were produced with compressors for which both R-12 and R-134a freon could be used.
But you need to remember that even if your car fell into this transition period, in no case should you fill in the mineral after the polyalkyl glycol composition - this way your car air conditioner will not last long. Industrial air conditioning systems (refrigeration units) operate on R-404a freon and use POE synthetic refrigeration oil, which in its physical properties is very similar to PAG group oils.
These types of oils should never be mixed with each other or replaced one with another.
Due to its design features, the industrial type of an air conditioner compressor is not designed for such maintenance and may fail. The PAG type has one drawback - it quickly saturates with moisture in the open air., so it is produced in small cans, which are not always enough for one refueling of an air conditioner.
Car categories - hint to the driver
The origin of the car will also help determine which oil should be poured into your air conditioner. So, for the market of Korean and Japanese cars, the PAG 46, PAG 100 brands are used, for the American car market, mainly PAG 150, for European cars, the most common brand is PAG 46.
If you decide to change the oil, but you do not know the volume of the system, in this case it is recommended to completely clean the engine of the car air conditioning compressor. These measures are necessary in order to make sure that there are no mechanical impurities and that your system is airtight. Only then can you add the amount of oil that you need. Before refueling, it is recommended to fill the system with part of the total amount of oil in order to avoid oil shock in the compressor.
All grades have a different viscosity coefficient, and many auto mechanics recommend increasing this coefficient due to changes in the weather throughout the year, as this reduces the viscosity. That is why most people use the PAG 100 oil brand - for our climate, the composition has an optimal viscosity coefficient.
Whatever they tell you in stores and services, remember that universal refrigeration oils do not exist in nature. For the compressor of your car air conditioner, you should use only the recommended type of oil, which is prescribed in your service book. And in case of serious malfunctions of the air conditioner, you should definitely contact the specialists.
