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Rob:

Welcome to our podcast. All about the car brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman an auto service specialist with over 44 years of industry experience. Back with me today, our regular guest Bryan Call a veteran in the automotive industry with over 40 years of experience. Hello Bryan.

Bryan:

Hey Rob. How we doing today?

Rob:

Excellent. And Bill Schierl, a guy that's been driving a long, long time and always has a lot of great questions. Hello Bill.

Bill:

Hi, Rob. How are you?

Rob:

I'm good. Also along with us on the ride is Jodi team leader of our Schierl Tire and Service in Marshfield. Hey Jodi. Welcome back to our studio.

Jodi:

Oh, happy to be back. Thank you, Rob.

Rob:

Good to see ya. Well, let's hop in, buckle up and hit the road

Rob:

Today. We're talking about your car's air conditioner. You know, it's often said that we've got it pretty good here in Wisconsin, nestled within the great lakes and with a rough cut interior made of forests and farms and historic towns, one could say that Wisconsin offers the best of all worlds, especially when it comes to weather. As Wisconsinites, we've all come to appreciate the four seasons. There is however one season that can get a little uncomfortable for us Northern folk and that's summer. This is when it's time to turn on the air conditioner. It's that first time of the season when you hit that button, you turn on the air conditioner and hoping, gosh, I'm sure hoping it works because I really need it right now. How do you know it's working Bryan? I mean, when you hit that button for the first time in the season, how do you know it's really gonna do what you need it to do?

Bryan:

By the temperature coming out the air? That's really as simple as that, if it's nice and cold, it's working good.

Rob:

So you just wanna feel that difference almost that refrigerated feel.

Bryan:

Yeah, it should be, feel like 20 to 30 degrees colder than what it is in the car. So it's going in to take that heat out and get it out of the car and make it comfortable for you.

Rob:

Jodi, have you hit that button yet this season?

Jodi:

Yeah, we have last week. We've had a few calls yesterday. We actually had a few more. It's starting it's that season. We went from winter to now main

Rob:

Summer.

Bill:

Summer

Jodi:

Summer.

Rob:

No, in between .

Jodi:

No.

Rob:

Hello AC. So you've hit the button in your vehicle too. You've got a Jeep, right?

Jodi:

Yeah, I do. But no, I haven't.

Rob:

You haven't hit it yet?

Jodi:

No, no.

Rob:

How about you Bill?

Bill:

I have.

New Speaker:

Okay, so you, well...

Bill:

Yes, most certainly.

Rob:

You like that comfort.

Bill:

I did.

Bryan:

That's why you get it might as well use it.

Rob:

Absolutely.

Bill:

So when did air conditioning even first begin?

Rob:

Well, air conditioning, I think goes way back to the early forties. As a matter of fact, 1940. If I remember correctly, Packard, the Packard brand actually came out with air conditioning, which is crazy to think about back in those days. And that was a factory item for that car. And then by 1969, more than half of the cars sold were equipped with air conditioning. Almost don't remember seeing that much air conditioning on cars, but 50% of 'em is pretty good amount of cars.

Bryan:

I'm surprised the number's that high.

Rob:

I am too.

Bryan:

We had 4-55 air conditioning, four windows down 55 miles an hour. . That was the norm.

Rob:

That was the kind I had back in the day.

Bill:

Yes

Rob:

That's for sure.

Bill:

One hundred percent. But now do they even sell vehicles without air conditioning?

Rob:

Very small percentage. I think everybody's pretty much got accustomed to it. I think the industry's gotten good at making 'em and making 'em work right. And I think almost all cars come out with them. I think it's just the way it is.

Bryan:

I don't think I've seen one in years that has not been equipped with air conditioning.

Bill:

And now the new thing is the whole ventilated seats. Right? Air conditioned seats.

Bryan:

Oh, they're awesome.

Bill:

Yeah.

Rob:

Yeah. Talk a little bit more about that. So my wife and her SUV has those ventilated seats or they call it air conditioned seats, I think in the Ford.

Bryan:

Yeah, it is.

Rob:

How the heck does that work?

Bryan:

There's duct work down underneath the lower seat in the back and it's actually blowin cold air and it's porous enough that it allows the airflow to come through and cool you off.

Rob:

So that kind of just comes up from underneath you.

Bryan:

Yep.

Rob:

That's the perfect angle. Really... Jodi, you got those on your vehicle?

Jodi:

No.

Rob:

Oh.

Jodi:

And if I do, I don't know that I have it.

Rob:

It's time to trade it in and get one with air conditioned seats, ventilated seats.

Bian:

Do you have heated seats?

Jodi:

No.

Rob:

What?

Bryan:

That you probably don't have 'em then?

Jodi:

No, No, mine's plain Jane and I'm okay with that. But yeah, like Bryan said before going 55 miles an hour with windows down,

Rob:

You know, those ventilated seats have been around for a while. As a matter of fact, back in 98 from my research, the SAAB came out with a ventilated seat,

Bill:

Which is amazing. The infiltration of new vehicles has taken a really long time to get there.

Rob:

It really has. And then of course the ventilated air conditioned seats, what would come next and that would be hot and cool seats.

Bill:

Right.

Rob:

And Lincoln came out with that first in 2000. So...

Bill:

Soon they're gonna have, I mean, I don't know how they'll do it, but a cooled steering wheel's so they have heated steering wheels.

Rob:

That's right.

Bill:

But a cold steering wheel for even the majority of the people who not necessarily up here, but in the south, that would definitely be a value.

Bryan:

That's a little more complicated than that.

Rob:

Yeah.

Bryan:

You put a heating element in the steering wheel to get it to heat. It's kind of tough to put duct work in there.

Rob:

Yeah. There's no cooling element.

Bryan:

No, the one I'm surprised they don't have is cup holders.

Bill:

Oh...

Speaker 4:

That are...

Bill:

Very good point Bryan.

Rob:

Here we go. Bryan, that's your retirement right there.

Bryan:

There you go. I would think that'd be simple enough to do, to put some ducts down.

Rob:

That should be easy actually.

Bryan:

I would think it would be.

Rob:

Just going up and surrounding the cup absolutely.

Bian:

For those of us that don't drink coffee. .

Bill:

Right.

Rob:

As we talked a little bit about how the cooled seats works and that's just amazing to me that's technology at its finest, but how does air conditioning work? I mean, to a many people, that's a magical thing hitting that button and all of a sudden voila, we've got that creature comfort. Cool. Going on. How does that all work? And I know that's a big question.

Bryan:

It can get pretty deep that deep in that.

Rob:

Well, that's why we're sitting here talking,

Bian:

There you go. it's a big refrigerator or a big dehumidifier and there's a compressor on there that creates pressure and a low pressure system at the same time. And with that pressure differential, the refrigerant that's in there, no matter what style it is, absorbs that heat under a low pressure and then goes outside the car under a high pressure and dissipates the heat through the, the condenser out in front of the radiator.

Rob:

That's pretty technical.

Bryan:

Yeah. We can go deeper than that too, if you want but it's just heat exchange. It's taking it from one area and moving it over to another area.

Rob:

Okay. So it's taking the heat out of the equation basically, or the humidity in a lot of cases.

Bryan:

It's a dehumidifier also. So,

Bill:

So what's...

Bryan:

Pulls that moisture out of the air too.

Bill:

Okay. So the heat and moisture are two different things, obviously.

Bryan:

Mm-hmm.

Bill:

But it does both.

Bryan:

It does both at the same time, just like a dehumidifier or a refrigerator in your house.

Bill:

And that's why you get drips.

Bryan:

Yep.

New Speaker:

From...

Bryan:

You get big puddles underneath the car on a really humid day.

Bill:

Got it.

Bryan:

It's pulling that moisture out of inside the cabin and getting it out of there through some duct work. If the duct is blocked and it won't drain, you go around the corner, you can actually hear the water slosh from side to side in that reservoir that it's got in the duct work, you can get damp floors, the water can leak inside if it's not doing it correctly.

Rob:

That must be that musty smell that a lot of people talk about.

Bryan:

Yeah. It's mold actually down on the evaporator core because it's such a damp condition that mold will actually start and there's chemicals to get rid of that cab and air filters have really helped that too.

Rob:

Makes sense.

Bill:

Jodi, what is the, you know, like when somebody comes in and says my air conditioning doesn't work, what typically do you find is the problem or how do you repair that?

Jodi:

A mass majority of it I would say is because the freon is low. Matter of fact yesterday, we had one, it was an older vehicle and it was completely empty. The system was empty.

Bill:

That definitely won't work huh?

Jodi:

Yep. So , but we've also found even on certain vehicles while probably most of 'em, even if it fluctuates an ounce or two, it may or may not work if you're overflow, it won't work. If you're under it won't work either. So if the uevery vehicle recommends a certain amount of ounces or a pound and ounces. So if it's, let's say it's supposed to be one pound, six ounces, and it's one pound four ounces. It may not work and get, you may not get the coolness. So if, even if it's over that,usame thing. So we had a vehicle few years ago that it kept coming back and we thought we had it. Exactly. It was. And here we found out that it was fluctuating with the ounce or ounce or half ounce or whatever,

Rob:

Really sensitive, then very sensitive.

Jodi:

Yep.

Bill:

So how do I know what my air conditioning fluid is at?

Jodi:

Well, you'll have to go to a shop. What they do, what we do. We have a process in place when that happens, where we start is we actually would take several steps, but taking the freon out, we measure what was taken out. We can actually look it up to see what your system actually recommends. We go through our whole system check, which I'm sure we'll go through in a little while. And then we put back in what we took out for yours. And if you need to add it, we take care of that as well.

Bill:

Got it.

Rob:

Well, it does get pretty technical. That's why we have technicians.

Bill:

Right. And do you flush it or clean it? Or do you always put new stuff in?

Speaker 3:

Well, we've out what was in the system. We measure that we can put that back in and then we, we do have new stuff. Well, new stuff that we put back in as well,

Bian:

That's filtered when it comes out the machine filters it to make sure there's no water in there, any impurities.

Rob:

So let's talk about real world here to all of our drivers and listeners out there. So the air conditioning is working. Now. We hit that button for the first time. We're starting to enjoy life. It's getting hot outside. What's the best way to get the most out of that air conditioner. What I mean by that is what you were referring to earlier, Bill, that when you get into a hot car, how do you cool it down the fastest? What's the best method of that.

Bryan:

Now, the way I like to do it is roll the windows down for a minute or so just to get that really super heated air out of there. Yeah. I'm sitting on a blacktop parking lot. It can be 140 degrees inside that car real easily.

Rob:

So as you're moving, just bring the windows down.

Bryan:

Yep. Get it out as fast as you can at usually a minute or so, and then roll the windows up and put the air conditioner on high and recirculate. So it's cooling the air that's inside the cabin and not introducing hot air from the outside.

Bill:

I used to only think that there, the recirculate was for if I was in traffic and I didn't wanna have all the, everybody else's exhaust to come in.

Rob:

It's conditioning the air that's already in the cabin. Instead of reintroducing, let's say 95 degree air from the outside with 90% humidity, it's gonna make that system work that much harder

Bill:

That I assume works for the same philosophy of in the winter to heat up your car.

Rob:

Hmm. I never thought about it that way. I remember years and years and years ago, the conversations that would come about am I better off from a fuel mileage standpoint, driving with the windows down, down the highway where you do get that constant exchange of air. If the windows are down versus having the windows up and enjoying that air conditioning, what's the philosophy today with today's cars.

Rob:

They're so aerodynamic nowadays that having the air conditioner on and the windows closed will give you better fuel economy than having the windows open and air conditioning off.

Bill:

That's good to know, and now I feel better.

Bian:

I was gonna say, you don't wanna feel guilty about using it.

Rob:

It comes back to your previous statement. If you got it, use it, right?

Bian:

Absolutely.

Rob:

So let's lay that one to rest. Keep the windows on a warm day, keep the windows up in the air, conditioning on it and just enjoy the ride.

Bian:

Absolutely.

Rob:

Speaking of enjoying the ride, every time that we get together for an all about the car podcast, we always take a Wisconsin road trip. So we take a break, we hop back into the car and we head out to a popular Wisconsin destination. And today we are traveling to the Milwaukee area and we're gonna enjoy the seven mile fair. So we've filled our wallets with some cash, maybe a credit card, and we're gonna do some shopping. So this is down in Southeast Wisconsin, about 30 miles north of the Illinois border. So it's kind of a road trip, no doubt about it. 10 minutes south of the Mitchell international airport. So you can fly there if you really wanted to and didn't wanna hop in the car. but just off of I-94, so easy to get to Jodi, you've been there.

Jodi:

I have

Rob:

Tell us

Jodi:

It is actually an experience that I think everybody should go through.

Bill:

Now, did you have a speedometer because is it really seven miles? Did you walk around?

Jodi:

I didn't. But if you went in and out of there's three huge buildings and a big outside area that is fenced in, if you literally watch, probably walked every single aisle and all around everything, I'd say it's it's.

Bill:

Seven miles.

Jodi:

It's a lot.

Bill:

Okay, Good.

Rob:

That's interesting. Cuz they call it the seven mile fair, but it really is just one big shopping extravaganza. Right? That's really what you're not gonna go there and go on rides or anything like that.

Jodi:

No, they do had well of course they didn't go in cause I didn't have any little kids along, but they do have an area where there is a playground for kids inside, one of the buildings.

Rob:

Nice. And this has been going since 1961. So this isn't anything new out there and I'm sure a lot of our listeners have been there. I haven't been there. I know my wife would probably love to go. So we're gonna have to have a side conversation on that.

Jodi:

Absolutely.

Bill:

I've driven by it numerous, numerous times. Never stop because I think for some reason, like you're going away for the weekend and you're usually going down on a Friday or something and it just doesn't ever seem to be open. Cuz I think most these days it's open on Saturdays and Sundays.

Jodi:

Correct.

Bill:

Looks very interesting.

Jodi:

It is. It is actually David and I went a couple years ago. I like to go back when the whole thing is open to see everything. They only had a few vendors that were set up outside.

Bill:

Right.

Jodi:

But yeah, it was definitely interesting. You want old car parts?

Rob:

Really?

Jodi:

Oh yeah.

Rob:

Everything.

Jodi:

Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. It was very, very interesting.

Rob:

Just gonna read a short exerpt here... Seven mile fair Wisconsin is a place to find real bargains from farm fresh produce to great gifts, home garden and hobby items. And even the latest children's games. There you go. Bring the whole family.

Jodi:

Mm-hmm .

Rob:

And electronics. They're a one stop shop for everything that your family needs all year round hundreds of vendors. And they say don't miss our NASCAR jackets in sports, memorabilia tools and car, audio systems, just everything just about everything you can absolutely imagine produce that just blows me away. That's just everything.

Jodi:

They had a lot of that right outside. One of the side ones, anything you can imagine.

Rob:

And from what I understand, they're open year round. So in the wintertime, they're under, under the roof in a building and then in summer, poof, it explodes. Everything goes outside.

Bill:

Will have to be a destination a Sunday afternoon on the way back from, you know, like Milwaukee or Chicago.

Rob:

Absolutely

Jodi:

And make sure you get there as soon as the door's open, because it's gonna...

Bill:

It's crowded?

Jodi:

Take you that long all day.

Rob:

And the exciting part about it. You don't have to spend a ton of money to spend money there. Two bucks for what ages 12 and up to get in. So just a small price to pay, to get in, enjoy a pretty much a full day.

Jodi:

Oh, they also...

Bryan:

Looks like you're a dollar to get in Rob

Rob:

. Oh, not that depends on senior. Yep.

Jodi:

They also have right in, I believe it was in the center building cuz there's three of 'em. They actually have a food court there. That was quite interesting. It was very good. Very, very good.

Bill:

Awesome. Sounds fun.

Rob:

Definitely putting that on my list. And I think everybody here in the room is gonna do the same. So excellent. We'll have to check that out the seven mile fair. Well back in the car and back to business with our air conditioning podcast, all about the car, we're gonna get into a little more of the nitty gritty at this point. And I know every vehicle has its own, I guess, controls and settings on the dash and how you operate that air conditioning. And obviously we can't get into every single one of those, but what are some of the more common setups for air conditioning? I know climate control to kick it off is one thing, but there's probably many different climate controls.

Rob:

The climate control, you set it at a certain temperature and it's designed to keep the cabin at that temperature. Most of them have a driver's and passenger temperature setting. So it can be two different settings. So it's taking multiple computers and trying to create a stable atmosphere, I guess, inside the car.

Rob:

That's really about as good as it gets. I mean, you set it and you're good to go.

Bryan:

It's good to go.

Rob:

At that point.

Bryan:

Yep.

Rob:

You're not increasing decreasing, pressing buttons and going as you changing as you go down the road,

Rob:

That's what it's made for

Bill:

In the climate control, do you know if it controls the vent selection? You know, like whether it's coming at your face, your feet or through the defrost area.

Bryan:

Yep. It determines what's needed and it'll come out through either the vent in the dash or possibly up on the windshield.

Bill:

Wow.

Rob:

And then you referred to different settings for the driver and the passenger too.

Bryan:

Yep.

Rob:

So you've got that all within that particular type of control system and some vehicles have air conditioning in the rear. So that's not just the air getting to the rear of the inside of the vehicle, but it's actually coming out of the rear. Is that correct?

Bryan:

Yep. Correct. It's got a fan back there that helps get the cool air to the rear. The vans, your SUVs, your CUVs are typically the ones that have that cars typically won't have that. So it can get the whole cabin cooler and more comfortable for everybody.

Rob:

Yeah. So if you ride with your dog in the back, that's a perfect setup.

Bryan:

Yep.

Rob:

Scenario

Bryan:

Fido can have some nice, cool air too.

Rob:

Awesome. Right? With your pet for sure. Questions that often had come up, is it good to in the fall not to do or service anything with your air conditioning because you're not gonna be using that for a while, but the theory is, and maybe it's more, I'm sure it's more than a theory. Does your car use the air conditioning in the winter?

Bryan:

Yep, absolutely.

Rob:

It does?

Bryan:

Yep. When you're in the defrost mode, almost all cars, the air conditioner comes on. It acts as a dehumidifier. So you're pulling the moisture out before it goes up onto the windshield and creating fog or condensation up there freezing up. So it's designed to work year round.

Rob:

So if your air conditioner, if you decide to let it go, when it quits working for any reason, car gets older. Defrosting could be a challenge in the wintertime.

Bryan:

Absolutely.

Rob:

That's a good thing to keep in mind.

Bill:

That makes total sense, now that moist air isn't being blown across a cold windshield and making frost,

Bryan:

We've all seen it where you take the scraper...

Bill:

Yeah. It's inside. Now I understand back in the old day, like how you got frost on the inside of your windows.

Rob:

Now let's talk a little bit about when we hit that button for the first time and it doesn't get cool. You don't notice a difference. It feels like the same temperatures before you hit that button. And Jodi, you referred to this earlier about the process that you would go through when you search out automotive service center that can service air conditioning. Where does a person go and how do they take care of this?

Jodi:

Well go to your local shop, whoever you trust, what you wanna do most, I would assume most of them do it. I shouldn't say assume, but probably most do. We have a process in place where we call air conditioning maintenance service. What that includes is, and it's usually about an hour process from the start to finish of this. When we bring the vehicle in, we inspect all of your dry belts, check your vent temp, which Bryan mentioned earlier. We check it on the high and the low side, we measure the freon of what we mention, what I said earlier we evacuate. And then we recharge your system, clean everything out, put it in there. We check the temperature. We check any, we put a dye in the system as well. Cuz sometimes it might not be visual that it's leaking. Or like we mentioned earlier, Bill that it's not working and it's high orlow we'll put a dye in the system, we usually recommend to come back in about a week so we can check that. But the free system recheck within about 10 days, it says two weeks on our sheet, but we usually recommend about 10 to 10 to 14 days. We put up in our air conditioning service. We put up to a pound of freon back into your system. So let's say your system is one pound six ounces for instance. And it was completely empty. We would put up to that pound back in and then you would just get charged for that extra six ounces.

Bill:

So how heavy is freon since you're talking pounds and stuff like a pound of freon, is that a gallon jug? Like how much freon is actually in my vehicle?

Bian:

That's quite the question.

Rob:

That's a good question.

Bill:

Like you're talking pounds. Yeah. I mean how much fluid is that

Bryan:

From a space perspective it's not that much. The refrigerants they go from a gas to a liquid state very easily. So depending on the state or what the matter is it obviously a gas is gonna take up a lot more area.

Bill:

Right.

Bryan:

Than a liquid, but the actual capacity in comparison to a milk jug, I can't tell you that. I don't know. But as time has gone on because of environmental concerns, the refrigerants have changed over the years and the capacity has changed. Also we dial this back into the seventies. R 12 was the primary refrigerant that was used and five pounds was nothing. Almost every car took that or more when we went to R 134, which is a more environmentally friendly type refrigerant, the capacities went down to about two pounds. So about half. And now the new refrigerant, the R 1234 Y A or Y F a pound is pretty typical and it's even more environmentally friendly. So we're getting to the not environmentally safe, but definitely a lot better for the environment over the course of the last 40, 50 years.

Rob:

Clear as mud Bryan.

Bryan:

Yeah.

Bill:

Yeah.

Bryan:

Long answer to your question.

Bill:

Well, there's less of it.

Bryan:

Yep.

Bill:

But it could be heavier. I won't even go there to think about like how heavy something is at five pounds could be the same volume, but we won't go there. So.

New Speaker:

Rob:

So Jodi, back to your comments on where to start with that vehicle, that where the air conditioning's not working. So pretty much what you're doing from what I gathered in your shop, your technicians are giving the vehicle, everything it needs to operate correctly. And then from there you look for a fault if there is one.

Jodi:

Absolutely.

Rob:

Okay.

Jodi:

Yep.

Rob:

Part of that was a visual check. You're checking the belts to make sure everything's turning and all that. Some of these things for our do it your selfers can be actually physically or visually checked by the owner of the car.

Jodi:

They could, if they know what they're looking at, we do have guests that come in that say, Hey, I recharge my system, but they don't know what they have currently in their system. They don't know what their system actually recommends.

Rob:

That doesn't sound like a good idea.

Jodi:

I wouldn't recommend it.

Rob:

No, but they could look at their dry belts. They could open the hood and safely open the hood while the vehicle's running and see that everything's turning correctly and maybe listening for the normal noises that a air compressor turning on and off will make. And sometimes a little click or some noises they could kind of coming back to where we started the podcast. Just putting your hand up on the vent to see if it's actually changing the air temperature. I mean a few things, but to go any further than that, I think these days it takes an automotive technician.

Bryan:

Unfortunately there's a lot of bad refrigerants out there. People trying to cut cost. One of the components that these rogue type refrigerants is propane,

Rob:

That sounds dangerous.

Bryan:

It is, it's a fire hazard if we were to get in an accident. So you really gotta make sure, you know what you're buying. If you're gonna attempt it yourself, a lot of the aftermarket kits have sealants in it, which sounds great. Sounds like it's gonna seal up. Make sure it doesn't leak anymore, but we may not be able to work on it afterwards. So that sealant would ruin our machine.

Rob:

The repair in a can so to say is not necessarily the right way to go. Okay.

Jodi:

Yep. But we actually had that not too long ago, Bryan we're with one of our machines. It is really highly recommended. If someone does try to recharge our system, please let your local mechanic shop know what you actually did prior to us touching up.

Rob:

Is there any way to be proactive with this rather than just taking that shot every spring time by hitting the magic button, is there a way to perform maintenance or service on the air conditioner to kind of get ahead of the game, such as doing oil changes on your car, that type of thing. Is there anything to be done?

Bryan:

Nope. Nope. It it's all self-contained, there's no maintenance work to do other than like a cabin air filter to help with the musty smell outside of that, no.

Rob:

What I'm hearing here is we're better off leaving it to the pros. Really, if you're gonna have your air conditioning, maintained and repaired for the long haul, sounds like you're better off seeking out an automotive technicians. That's certified in AC.

Jodi:

Absolutely.

Rob:

Well, we learned a lot today about your car's air conditioner and cleared up all the mystery surrounding this magical component that keeps you cool on your summer road trips. We hope to have you ride along next time on all about the car. To listen to previous episodes, find additional resources or to simply send us a message head to all about the car podcast dot com. We'll see you next time.