AC wrong Freon

You have to have 134a virgin pure nothing in it not the freon that's the problem it's the oil you need nd11 oil it doesn't conduct electricity . Kind of similar to the oil in the transmission. The freon is regular 134a ND 11oil

 

Don’t?

seriously, I’d let dealership deal with it, disclose everything you’ve done as well. Show them the receipt for the “whatever” stuff, and the indicator dye.

 

there's no light for a bad compressor, but if there are any trouble lights, scan for codes

 

An auto AC shop will be way more respectful of your wallet than a Toyota Stealership.

 

It's probably not a leak, but some other type of failure... Hard to say at this point.

Prius AC is a variable pressure system... You need to empty out the system and then put in the exact weight of refrigerant and the exact weight of lubricant. It's possible to DIY this with a scale minus weight of the empty cans, but pretty challenging stuff.

Also folks have gotten away with adding/topping off with a small amount of the correct refrigerant without much issue, but at this point you need a vacuum pump to get the bad mixture out.

 

All I can say is when I did it, the result was destructive.

 

You'd think they could put a warning take at the injection port so everyone is aware that it is a variable pressure system and refrigerant must be added by weight, not by pressure.

Think of how many people wouldn't of lost big money had they done that?

 

You can't print enough warnings to prevent stupid people from doing stupid things.

 

Informing people that doing what's "normal" maintenance on their vehicle will damage their car to the the tune of many thousands of dollars with a warning tag would be a reasonable consideration if your Toyota designers changed the AC to a variable pressure system and actually thought it through.

 

I'm not sure how much the variable-pressure aspect even has to do with it. Maybe more just that it's a small system, nothing like the cavernous ones in old cars taking pounds of refrigerant. A smaller-capacity system has a smaller range between not-enough and too-much, so getting it right is more critical.

Pressure has always been a lousy way to tell how much refrigerant is in a system. Statically, for any amount that's enough for some to condense, the pressure just tells you the temperature, not the amount at all. In operation, with a two-gauge manifold you can learn more, but it's always been hard to beat measuring the right amount in.

If I remember right, some late model Prii (maybe it started with the c?) have a function you can access in Techstream to tell if the refrigerant charge is correct, high, or low. The system has enough inputs (high-side pressure transducer, evaporator temperature, electric compressor power) that they must have figured out they could just have the HVAC amplifier do some math with all that and tell you. I'm bummed my 2010 doesn't have that.

 

Thanks.. This helps us better understand why Toyota doesn't bother with a warning label about pressure. Makes me suspect car makers and AC technicians don't really base the refrigerant added with a pressure reading when filling a system and the pressure is more an antiquated method of aftermarket refrigerent sellers because it's the least expensive and simplest way to do it.