Anyone used Kwikfit for AC regas?

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Used Kwik Fit last week and they were great. Explained all the process and showed me the before and after pressures and amount of refrigerant in the car at the start and then again at completion. Full pressure and leak test conducted. Very impressed.


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I called in to Kwik Fit Macclesfield with the Vaino,
chap plugged his kit in and declared it has a leak, after a while. Fair enough. No charge.

Last month I returned with the Vito.
Different chap starts on his PC. Name, Address....... it went on, when he wanted my mobile and email I spat my dummy.
"Just regas it and I pay, simples." but no, needed my inside leg measurement. I left.

My temper should've been tempered, all I had to do was give the post code as SW1A 1AA but as I would've then been Prince Philip it's no wonder I was a bit slow there.
 
I called in to Kwik Fit Macclesfield with the Vaino,
chap plugged his kit in and declared it has a leak, after a while. Fair enough. No charge.

Last month I returned with the Vito.
Different chap starts on his PC. Name, Address....... it went on, when he wanted my mobile and email I spat my dummy.
"Just regas it and I pay, simples." but no, needed my inside leg measurement. I left.

My temper should've been tempered, all I had to do was give the post code as SW1A 1AA and as I would've been Prince Philip it's no wonder I was a bit slow there.
It's become very easy to unsubscribe from all methods of contact since GDPR.
 
It's become very easy to unsubscribe from all methods of contact since GDPR.

It still takes some effort,
and memory.

I'm older,
I'm grumpier.
Life is getting complicateder
 
I'm not sure what car you have but on the W210 and W220, you can do full diagnostics through the climate control panel. A/C system is a sealed system. If you need a re-gas , then there's a leak.
 
R134a gas is going thru the roof price wise , example 2 years ago 13kg bottle £49 to the trade , now £400 and still rising, eco Govt dept wants everyone on the R1234 new enviro friendly gas which is now coming down in price, no one really knows pricing on converting to this gas but it will be expensive, still a lot of the air con people have the gas stored from previous cheap price but when they to start paying the more costly price then watch a regas shoot thru the roof...
 
R134a gas is going thru the roof price wise , example 2 years ago 13kg bottle £49 to the trade , now £400 and still rising, eco Govt dept wants everyone on the R1234 new enviro friendly gas which is now coming down in price, no one really knows pricing on converting to this gas but it will be expensive, still a lot of the air con people have the gas stored from previous cheap price but when they to start paying the more costly price then watch a regas shoot thru the roof...
I paid £100 today for a regas!
 
yes no problems with kwikfit. and if its not colder they dont charge. On mine the a/c light was flashing as it was very slowly losing its gas nad had dumped it all over the winter. they regassed it (once it passed the pressure test) but the light was still flashing and no cold air. It turns out that although it does not send out an error code the the sensor that disables the compressor on low gas and sets the light flashing needs to be reset. So Icarsoft MB11 then aircon then delete all fault codes and it worked again. As it turns out only for four weeks until all he gas had again gone and the damaged condensor was replaced. All fine now.
 
yes no problems with kwikfit. and if its not colder they dont charge. On mine the a/c light was flashing as it was very slowly losing its gas nad had dumped it all over the winter. they regassed it (once it passed the pressure test) but the light was still flashing and no cold air. It turns out that although it does not send out an error code the the sensor that disables the compressor on low gas and sets the light flashing needs to be reset. So Icarsoft MB11 then aircon then delete all fault codes and it worked again. As it turns out only for four weeks until all he gas had again gone and the damaged condensor was replaced. All fine now.

So.... they didn’t really do a good vacuum test (it was losing gas, before and after the refill) I wouldn’t trust thickfit to pump up a bicycle tyre correctly.
 
So.... they didn’t really do a good vacuum test (it was losing gas, before and after the refill) I wouldn’t trust thickfit to pump up a bicycle tyre correctly.
Technically you are correct, although in the case of a 4-week period for the gas to escape it sounds like a pretty slow leak?

I’m sure Kwik-fit are not alone in those circumstances. Don’t they use a UV dye to detect any slow leaks not found under the relatively short vacuum test?
 
I'm not sure what car you have but on the W210 and W220, you can do full diagnostics through the climate control panel. A/C system is a sealed system. If you need a re-gas , then there's a leak.

It is sealed to the extent a wheel/tyre is sealed. Through use (and lack of use) and dry seals some small amounts of gas over time will degrade and need replenishing.


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It is sealed to the extent a wheel/tyre is sealed. Through use (and lack of use) and dry seals some small amounts of gas over time will degrade and need replenishing.


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While I appreciate that seals can dry up. It's a little more than a wheel/tire seals. I've not run my E23 745i in 2 years and the A/C blew ice cold when I ran it last week. That's an old system. Modern car a/c systems should hold better and seals should never dry up given that most systems run the a/c when defrost is used.
 
While I appreciate that seals can dry up. It's a little more than a wheel/tire seals. I've not run my E23 745i in 2 years and the A/C blew ice cold when I ran it last week. That's an old system. Modern car a/c systems should hold better and seals should never dry up given that most systems run the a/c when defrost is used.

The E23 probably uses R12 gas, apparently the molecules are a lot bigger and dont leak past the seals as easy as R134, however R12 is much more damaging. My old W126 was the same 30 years old and still running on the same gas as far as I could tell
 
Not mine, it's converted . That said unlike r12 systems, r134a systems use barrier hoses and will not leak. It's kind of like a cooling system. If it's leaking over time, you have a problem.

The E23 probably uses R12 gas, apparently the molecules are a lot bigger and dont leak past the seals as easy as R134, however R12 is much more damaging. My old W126 was the same 30 years old and still running on the same gas as far as I could tell
 

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