Learn How a Car’s Air Conditioning Works

Nancy takes you to school as she talks about your car’s air conditioning and explains why to be proactive in fixing it immediately!

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Nancy at Kneble’s Auto Service Center.

Summer is coming upon us very quickly. It’s already been 80 degrees outside. And what is worse than being all dressed up, ready to go out to dinner, you get in your car, you go to turn on the air conditioning and no air conditioning?

Well, you know what happens then? Your makeup, ladies, will start to drip. Your clothes are going to get all wet. And gentlemen, you will not have some pretty looking armpits there. They will have those stains. You’ll be all wet and drenched feeling. You will suddenly not be looking. You will be hot.

What’s worse than that? Imagine going down the shore with your whole family, the kids in the back seat. You’re stuck in traffic, and what are the kids going to be doing? Yelling, “Mom, dad, it’s hot. Turn on the air conditioning. We’re sweating back here.” And all you want to do is blow your stack because the air conditioning doesn’t work.

Now what I’d like to do is give you a little technical lesson here about how the air conditioning operates. Now, I’m not Bill Nye, The Science Guy, so I’m going to be your third-grade substitute teacher. Let me get my lesson plan for you.

Did you know that air conditioning does not turn air cold?

Jinkies.

When you turn on your air conditioning, the refrigerant, or Freon, is drawn into the compressor as a low-pressure gas. The compressor forces it into the condenser as a high-pressure gas. From there, the condenser takes this high-pressure gas and condenses it, cooling it down, and converting the gas into a liquid.

Now don’t lose me. Hold on. The liquid refrigerant flows into a receiver-dryer and dries the refrigerant, pooling out any moisture contaminants, and then flows to an expansion valve, or a small hole, for the refrigerant to pass to go to the evaporator.

Almost done. The evaporator changes the Freon from a liquid to a gas. As it boils, the process occurs and heat is absorbed, therefore making the evaporator cold. So as the Freon leaves the evaporator as a low-pressure gas and the whole process starts all over.

Now, remember there are other factors with the air conditioning. There are the blower motor and the fan. They force air through the cooled evaporator so the heat inside your car is absorbed by the evaporator and blowing out cold air into your car.

And the condenser fan takes the air that’s outside your car and passes over the condenser that allows a condensation process.

Now remember too, you have vents. So you have a mode vent, which also directs the air to different vents in the vehicle, and you have a blend door, which gives the amount of air coming out of the vents. So there’s a lot of factors when having your air conditioning not working, and there are possible problems with this.

Also, you hear a lot of people say, “Oh, I’m just gonna charge my air conditioner. That’s what it needs. The Freon.” Now you can do that. But remember that if you are charging your air conditioning, remember, it’s a closed system. So if you’re losing Freon, there’s a hole somewhere.

So, therefore, when we charge your system, we put dye in with the Freon and we put the exact proper amount. Because too little, or too much, your air conditioner can become ineffective.

So when we put the dye in, this will be able to possibly detect it right away, but it depends on the size of the hole. Now, you want to go and be proactive, and go to your car care specialist and have them check out your air conditioning system. Because if they’re like us, we’ll do it for free.

We check your air conditioning for free.

Now, if you like what I said, and you’re want to be cool for the summer, Thumbs up. Press the Like button. If you have any questions or comment, please enter them below.

Share the information, because truthfully, everybody should be cool in the summer. Nobody wants to be hot.

Thank you for watching my video.