How does my Car's Air Conditioning make Cold Air?

“How does my Car’s Air Conditioning make Cold Air?”

Welcome to Mercie J Auto Care, Where Compassion and Craftsmanship Come Together. I'm Rick Smith, ASE Certified Master Technician.

Have you ever wondered how your air conditioner in your car makes cold air? Well, we’re going to give you a basic 101 on that today.

Most of you know that your car’s air conditioner has refrigerant in it. The old term we used to use was freon, but its actually not freon anymore. Freon is a generic name like Kleenex is a generic name for facial tissues.

So think of refrigerant as a wheel barrow. We take that refrigerant to the inside the car and we load it up with heat from inside the car and then we move it out to the front and dump the heat out. That’s basically how it works. It continues that cycle as you drive your car. The refrigerant is under a low pressure and low temperature, then it absorbs the heat and goes out in front of the radiator where we put it under a high pressure about 250 to 300 pounds, which is also 250 to 300 degrees. So we take that heat from the inside of the car and dump it on the outside.