Hi Folks, Im having to rebuild my ac system after some moron used PAG oil with one of those cans from autozone. Does anyone know the total capacity of ND-11 oil that is required for a completely dry system? Also, anyone have any advice for removing the ac expansion valve that sits behind the engine ? I will have to remove it to flush the evaporator.. Tom
Might want to get techstreams repair manual and read up on the procedure for the A/C system, instead of relying on what others here might remember form doing the same in the past.
Mendel I sure you meant well posting the snipet from the repair man. The one is pre refresh and the regular Prius. check the OP listed vehicle.
Not sure if it would be different. Agree though, safest DIY approach would be to take out short term Techstream subscription and check. my approach would be to hand over to dealership service department FWIW.
Due to my experiences in the dealership waiting room over aprox. 25 years, both my pocketbook and my sanity require me to do more of my own maintenance and even repairing the car after it'b been in a shop than I care to think about. Color me envious if you still get decent services at a dealership.
I agree, but with AC I've held my nose and brought it in, once, due to tepid cooling. $150 CDN over-the-phone quote was ballooning to over $200, because "of course" that didn't include shop supplies, refrigerant, god-knows-what. I had to go more-or-less ballistic, saying a quote is a quote, and grudgingly let the service writer wet her beak for about an extra $15. Yeah it's not often, but I don't want to take chances with AC.
Honestly, I did take the car to the dealership, and requested they troubleshoot. After 2 hours of troubleshooting, they told me "the ac doesnt work" Total waste of money, the dealership I took it to does have decent reviews, but honestly, I think a repair such as this is well beyond the abilities of the average tech that is working there. The prime uses 1060g of R134A, quite a bit more than the regular prius. I ordered a used compressor of ebay, used accumulator, new condenser from rock auto, and I still need a couple of the large hard suction lines (as mine were bent a bit from the collision) Turns out the failure in my system had nothing to do with the collision, but with a slow leak in one of the fittings in the accumulator assembly, I only recovered 370 grams of refrigerant from the system, so Im guessing being that low, and also low on oil caused the compressor to overheat, and ultimately catastrophically fail. I will post some pics to a new thread. Hopefully someone can chime in with the correct amount of oil. Tom
sounds like you know what you're doing, which is more than I can say. Good luck with the repair, and post the outcome.
Bump on this - with everything clean (except the interior evaporator, as I wasnt able to flush it) I added 6 Oz of POE oil I bought from summit racing. will see how it runs, and will give a 6 month report. Tom
