Automotive air-conditioning refrigerant market confusion and adulteration serious

"Strange, my car was newly charged with air-conditioning refrigerant, why is the effect still bad?" Mr. Wang, a Hangzhou car owner, bought a second-hand car last year. He felt that the car's air conditioner was not cooling well, so he went to a small service shop in a large auto parts market in Hangzhou to add refrigerant, but to his surprise, after filling the new refrigerant, the air conditioner blew out not a very comfortable cold air.

Mr. Wang's experience is not an isolated case. "We found that the air conditioning condenser of some of the old cars was leaking, and the reason for the leakage was the corrosion of the condenser." Sun manager of a 4S shop in Hangzhou said that many car owners like to go to roadside shops to add air conditioning refrigerant because the price is half cheaper, but as a result, they are added to adulterated air conditioning refrigerant, which not only has poor cooling effect, but also suffers chronic damage to the car parts in different degrees.

With R12, owners' vehicles are hurt

"Now the car air conditioning refrigerant are used R134, R12 has long been banned." Ford 4S shop Zhejiang Kangzhong car service manager Wu Kui Zhong said, if you add R12, R22 and other refrigerants, a short period of time, the air conditioner can also be cooled, that is, the effect is worse, but long-term use, light will produce leakage, serious, will cause irreparable damage to the entire car air conditioning system.

"A car owner came to our company to repair his car, saying that the air conditioner in the car is not cooling, but it is easy to accumulate ice." The company's general manager, Xu Guoqiang, said they had professional identification instruments and found that the so-called newly-filled R134 refrigerant was actually R12 after testing the owner's vehicle. This can lead to leaks. One owner had to replace the condenser, evaporator and compressor, resulting in a loss of a few thousand dollars, or 20,000 to 30,000 yuan.

Banned refrigerants still on the market

Car air-conditioning refrigerants, also known as "snow seeds", are banned refrigerants masquerading as environmentally friendly refrigerants. In recent days, reporters visited Hangzhou auto parts market and found that the banned and inferior refrigerants are still being sold in the market.

The reporter went to an auto parts city in the north of Hangzhou and saw several cans of refrigerant hanging on the wall in the workshop of several auto parts companies. When the reporter asked to buy cheap R12 refrigerant, the auto parts salesman said that there was no display placed at the head of the shop and no retail sales. If you want to buy wholesale you can pick it up from the warehouse, as they only wholesale to service shops.

According to the report, R12 and R22 are less used nowadays, but because of the cheap price, they are still chosen by many service shops. "The price of R134a refrigerant is about fifty to sixty yuan per can, but R12 is only half the price, and the main difference between the two is that they contain different fluorine specific gravity." Industry insiders say.

Less than 10% of 60 types of car refrigerants qualified

On July 3, an investigation broadcasted by CCTV's Weekly Quality Report showed that the passing rate of auto refrigerants was less than 10%. According to the survey, only 5 out of 60 kinds of refrigerants purchased in Beijing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou auto parts markets were found to be qualified, with a passing rate of less than 10%. Experts said that for cars produced after 2002, the air-conditioning system is designed for R134. If other non-134a refrigerants such as R12 and R22 are added, they can cool the car for a short time, but if they are used for a long time, they will leak and lead to poor air-conditioning, and in serious cases, the air-conditioning compressor will be strained. It is recommended that owners should try to go to a regular repair shop when they find that the air conditioner is not cooling well, and not to buy refrigerant for refilling on their own, and not to go to a small shop on the roadside or a small service shop in the auto parts market.