Car Air Conditioning Service and Regas in Ellenbrook

Prime Euro Services services car air conditioning at 3/37 The Broadway, Ellenbrook. All makes and models. Licensed WA motor vehicle repair business, MRB 8069.

In a Perth summer the aircon stops being a comfort feature at about 9am. It is also the system people understand least, which is why it is the one most often sold badly.

The one thing worth knowing

A car air conditioner is a sealed system. The refrigerant in it is not consumed, not burned and not used up. It goes round and round.

So if your aircon is low on gas, the gas went somewhere. It leaked.

That matters because a regas on its own is not a repair. It is a top up on a system with a hole in it. It will work, sometimes for a season, and then you are back where you started. Anyone who sells you a regas without mentioning the leak is selling you the same job twice.

We look for the leak first.

How it works, briefly

The compressor pressurises the refrigerant, which makes it hot. The condenser at the front of the car sheds that heat. The refrigerant then expands inside the evaporator behind your dashboard, which makes it very cold, and the fan blows cabin air across it.

Cold air is the end of that chain. Which means warm air at the vents can come from a fault anywhere along it.

Common faults, and what they feel like

• Cools slowly, or only when moving. Often low refrigerant, or a condenser blocked with road debris and bugs.
• Blows warm, compressor never engages. Could be a leak that has dropped pressure below the safety cut-out, an electrical fault or a failed compressor clutch.
• Smells musty when you first turn it on. That is bacteria on a damp evaporator. A cabin filter and a treatment usually sorts it. Gas has nothing to do with it.
• Weak airflow, air is cold. Usually a blocked cabin filter, not an aircon fault at all.
• Noisy when the aircon is on. Often the compressor or its clutch bearing.

Two of those five are not refrigerant problems. That is the point.

Who does the gas work

Handling automotive refrigerant in Australia needs a refrigerant handling licence from the Australian Refrigeration Council. Under the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Regulations, handling it without one is a strict liability offence.

So we do it the way we do engine ECU remapping. The refrigerant handling goes to a licensed specialist. We book it, we manage it, and you deal with us the whole way through. You drop the car here and pick it up here.

Everything around the gas is our own work: finding out what is actually wrong, the cabin filter, the airflow, the electrical side, the compressor and the condenser. The licensed part goes to the people licensed to do it, rather than us having a guess at it in house.

Cabin filter

The cheapest aircon improvement most cars can have. It sits behind the glovebox on most makes, it fills with dust and leaves, and a blocked one chokes the airflow no matter how good the refrigerant charge is. We check it as part of a log book service.

How we approach it

We find out what is actually wrong before we quote. If it needs gas, we want to know why it needs gas. Diagnostic work is charged at $170 per hour including GST, and you get told what we found, what it means and what it costs before anything goes ahead.

Our own parts and labour carry a 12 month warranty.

Book an air conditioning check in Ellenbrook

Prime Euro Services
3/37 The Broadway, Ellenbrook WA 6069
Phone (08) 6296 3894
Licence MRB 8069

Open Monday to Friday 7:00am to 5:00pm, and Saturday 7:00am to 12:00pm. Closed Sundays. Call, send an enquiry or walk in.

Questions we get asked

How often does aircon need regassing?

On a healthy sealed system, rarely. Systems do lose a very small amount over many years. If yours needs gas every summer, you have a leak.

Can you find a leak that is not obvious?

Usually. Leaks show up at joints, at the condenser and at the compressor shaft seal. Tell us the history and we will tell you what we think before you spend anything.

Do you do aircon on cars that are not European?

Yes. All makes and models. See our Ellenbrook mechanic page.