How to Find AC Leaks

How does a mechanic go about finding difficult freon or refrigerant leaks in the air conditioner? Welcome to Mercie J auto care where compassion and craftsmanship come together. I’m Rick Smith, master certified technician.

Now refrigerant or freon when it leaks out, you can’t see it because it’s a gas. It can leak out very slowly so it can be very difficult to find. So we're going to give you a quick indication of what happens with the refrigerant. There’s a part on there called the compressor which is a pump. This pumps refrigerant through lines to this part that’s out in front of the radiator and it’s called a condenser. So it pumps it out to the condenser. From there it pumps it to the evaporator. Now the problem with this part is this is inside the car behind the dash and you can’t see it. Then it pumps back out to the compressor. There’s multiple lines in there, there’s also something called the dryer in there and any of those can be leaking. Sometimes the leaks are pretty obvious, you can literally spray soap and water over everything and you’ll see bubbles. Sometimes they’re a little more difficult. What we normally do is we put some dye in the system and we run it because there’s an oil in that system that’s circulating. Then we have you drive the car for a little bit, it’s important that we clean everything up so there’s no residue. Then we shine this black light which is actually blue in color and then we wear these glasses that filter out blue so we only see the dye and it shines.

So the problem is trying to find the evaporator leaks so we have to be very very thorough under the hood and make sure we have no other leaks before we condemn this because this is an expensive repair. So I hope that helps you understand a little bit about how we go about finding difficult refrigerant leaks. Thanks for watching and until next time save travels and blessings to you