Hi folks
WA is a warm place in summer and you really notice when your air-con stops doing what it needs to do !
A couple of weeks ago mine gave up the ghost.
It took a couple of 15 k rounds trips twice a day in the early morning and late afternoon to really know this wasn't going to get any better and in the end actually did nothing other than blow out warm air at the temperature outside.
On inspection I felt lucky to hear the compressor was still running, all bar very noisy and also noticed a slightly green wet ring around a rubber junction hose just below the blue removable H cap on the discharge line.
I took the car into an air conditioning specialist in Perth who immediately said "that's your problem mate - the gas has leaked out" !
They also said it's a common problem with FD i30's and the other hose at the compressor end will almost definitely leak relativity soon or sometime in the near future and you'll be back to fix that too !
I wasn't happy to hear that, but they seemed to know what they were talking about so I asked what was their recommended fix other than replace both alloy pipes, as its made up 2 with rubber hose's at the ends and a junction in the middle.
They said it can obviously fixed with the genuine pipe work and gave me a rough idea as to the cost.
This I checked out later and they weren't far off the mark at around $700 for the hardware, plus fitting and $150 to re- gas the system.
That's around a $1000.00 plus in fact ! Scary figures in any ones book I thought. I wasn't happy.
The other solution offered was to replace the whole line with rubber air conditioning hose, from the condenser to the compressor. To be honest I bulked at that as I like to keep my cars all genuine if possible and I've been happy with the quality of the original design and build since I bought it.
However on that 35 degree day and wanting my air- con back, plus their long term very convincing knowledge, I said go ahead and replace it with a rubber hose.
Now the reason I'm writing this is to simply report the air conditioner since fitting that hose has NEVER worked this well. Even when I drove it out the car showroom in 2011, a brand new car. In fact I always thought it was 'just adequate' but not really great and I've heard other owners say the same.
Let me say very clearly I'm not an expert on air- conditioning, but I wonder could this better performance have something to do with the bore of that rubber hose and it going uninterrupted to the compressor ?
For those owners that are not happy with the air cons maybe they might want to investigate this further.
All I say is on our 30 degree plus days, with the car siting in the sun with a screen visor up and trying to make the best of any available shade that I can find, I bet the temperature in the cabin exceeds 40 or maybe even 50 degrees when I open that door. I now turn the air con on with the fan at full bore and within less than 10 seconds its blowing cool air and then withing another 10 seconds is getting cold, very cold in fact.
It's never done that before even when new ?
All I can say is, if your i30 air is average at best, maybe talk to an expert about this.
It may be a great modification, or just my luck, which is quite rare !
I wont talk about the cost of fitting that hose etc. as I'm still getting over that bit, but I'm really enjoying the lovely cold air con ....
Happy summer driving folks ....
Mal
