Every vehicle that pulls into your garage for air conditioning service is a threat until a service technician thoroughly tests its refrigerant to see if it is contaminated.

A detailed refrigerant analysis is a service technician's only assurance that he will not inadvertently introduce dangerous contaminates into the shop's refrigerant system where they can migrate to other customers' vehicles and potentially damage them.

Always know that your shop's refrigerant is pure - incoming supplies, warehoused stock, and the refrigerant in the recovery and recycling system. This critical first step can keep your shop free of these dangers:

Trashing the shop's recovery and recycling equipment
Do a detailed refrigerant analysis on every vehicle before doing any work. Be sure that only pure refrigerant is going into your recycling system.

Introducing flammable refrigerants that can cause possible fires or explosions
Be sure to use a refrigerant identifier that thoroughly analyzes refrigerant to the SAE standard of "98 percent-plus" purity. If the analysis discloses potentially dangerous gases, such as butane or propane, the system must be cacated. The service technician must pull a vacuum to remove all contaminants to a disposable (junk) cylinder. A full 30- or 60-pound junk cylinder may be recycled by a company that separates and repackages the gases for resale.

After the vacuum is completed, the system should be flushed according to SAE standards. A final step should be to consider retrofitting the system to accept R134a refrigerant.

A refrigerant identifier that sounds an alarm when it detects dangerous gases can alert a service technician not to let the gas get into the shop's recycling equipment. That's where a small leak can cause personal injury or a fire.

Damaging customers' A/C systems or affecting their performance by servicing them with a refrigerant that contains excessive air
Pure R12 and R134a are great, but if refrigerants contain air, your customer's system will operate at higher pressures that reduce cooling effectiveness and cut compressor life. It doesn't take much air to cause problems. Little more than 1 percent to 2 percent air can do it.

Getting contaminates in bulk R12 and R134a refrigerant supplies
Be sure that refrigerant supplies coming into the shop are pure. If possible, test them with a device that can provide a detailed analysis of what's in each shipment. Look for dangerous chemicals or excessive air. Know that what the label says is what you bought. If your analysis shows contamination, you can make a smart decision about what to do. Once you know the percentages of the contaminated refrigerant, you may be able to adjust the mixture to meet acceptable purity levels, which can save you money. For example, if a cylinder has 97 percent R12 and 3 percent R134a, pure R12 can be added to bring the mixture up to an acceptable 98 percent purity level. The process is called diluting by pollution.

Creating disposal problems
Be sure you are accurately measuring refrigerant quality so you adhere to SAE air conditioning standards for mobile air conditioning refrigerant purity. With detailed measurements you can make an appropriate disposal decision. If your equipment has a printout feature, take advantage of it. Keep a file with printouts of customers' analysis results. If a customer returns with a complaint that work done at your shop damaged his vehicle's air conditioning system, you can document the composition of his refrigerant when he arrived and show that his refrigerant was pure when he left.

Protect yourself by choosing and using the right refrigerant identification equipment. It could save your business.

Rick Moffett is product manager-equipment for Snap-on Tools Co. He has been employed by Snap-on since 1976 in various positions involving sales and product developement. Snap-on is an associate member of the Automotive Service Association (ASA).

As many automotive repair shops are well aware, air conditioning (A/C) service can be an extremely profitable business. In fact, the respondents of one recent survey said A/C service was the most profitable add-on service.

The A/C service market is better than ever. Not only are more vehicles on the road, but a much higher percentage of vehicles now have A/C. In the early 1990s, less than 85 percent of new vehicles had A/C. Today that number is over 99 percent.

Also affecting the A/C service market is the refrigerant capacity of today's R134a systems. Current R134a systems generally have a smaller capacity to hold refrigerant than R12 systems, so a small leak of refrigerant results in a more noticeable drop in cooling compared to R12 systems. Therefore, customers tend to bring their vehicles in for service sooner.

R134a is the universally accepted refrigerant of choice for vehicle manufacturers. If you decide to use a refrigerant blend, remember that your customer may have a difficult time getting serviced with the same blend if they need service at another repair facility while on vacation or relocating. I recommend that shops stick with R12 and R134a, and perform R134a retrofits when appropriate. Every manufacturer now has well-documented technical information concerning how to retrofit each model and retrofit kits are readily available.

The right equipment is one of the main keys to success. Be sure to purchase equipment that is productive and reliable. While price is important, keep in mind that performance and reliability should be your main concern. Select equipment that meets the needs of your business. You may also want to compare the warranty coverage that comes with each brand of equipment. Some A/C equipment can be expensive to repair and warranties do vary.

Jim Markle is vice president of marketing for RTI Technologies Inc. RTI Technologies is a manufacturer of automotive service equipment and an associate member of the Automotive Service Association (ASA).

In his 18 years of experience at Service Auto Air in Baton Rouge, service manager Bernard "Benny" White has seen it all. Everything from botched at-home air conditioning repairs to leaky hoses that dealerships could not locate have passed through his shop. But he's never seen anything like the current upheaval over contaminated refrigerant.

On the job
Service Auto Air specializes in air conditioning repair and installation, which includes selling wholesale and retail A/C parts. White's 10 bays will service more than 20 cars a day during the peak summer air conditioning season. So the refrigerant issue is something that caught his attention right away. He took action by purchasing a refrigerant identifier.

There is a concern that contaminated refrigerant will be inadvertently recycled and may spoil the shop's stock of good refrigerant. If that happens, there's a potential that a customer's car could be contaminated. Twelve to 15 cars can be charged from one 30-pound cylinder.

"If you don't have a good identifier, you're doing your customer a terrible injustice because there's no telling what you've got in the cylinder," said White. "In the past it was impossible to tell if contaminated refrigerant came into the shop. The refrigerant identifier has changed all that."

White picked an identifier that he felt was quick and easy to use. Because of its simple operation, there was no need for formal refrigerant identifier training. Technicians simply work with the equipment under the direction of a knowledgeable co-worker until they've mastered the operation.

If you're shopping around for a refrigerant identifier, ask if the company offers training on the use of the identifier or on handling contaminated refrigerant.

White ensures that everything in his shop is tested with the identifier before it's used. That checking procedure extends to virgin R12 cylinders. The two Snap-on identifiers at Service Auto Air are mounted on roller stands with a printer beneath them. The units roll from car to car all day. "We use the printout to explain to customers exactly what we're finding in their system and how to go about fixing it," said White. "It helps us direct the customer."

The Blends Dilemma
With the phase out of R12 refrigerant, do-it-yourselfers started going to alternatives like R22. And many of them decided that they could do the job themselves, so they just topped off the existing R12 refrigerant in their system with R22. That's a bad move. So bad, in fact, that White won't work on a car with an R12/R22 blend because he can't recover it properly.

Some blends, while operational in the car, can present a flammability issue for the driver and the technician. Using a refrigerant identifier will provide detailed information about the percentages of fluids found in the system.

Looking at the future, White expects to see more cars coming through the door of his shop with blend refrigerants that he can't service. "I know we'll have to turn down some jobs just because we don't have the equipment to service various blends," said White. "But it's just not cost-effective to take that work."

White says he would like to return to the old days before exotic refrigerant blends came into his shop everyday, but he'd never go back without the proper refrigerant identifier technology. It's a valuable tool that technicians and their customers have come to rely upon. It's the first line of defense in maintaining Service Auto Air's reputation for quality service.

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