the better a/c repair shops just last week picking up a condensor line and saw their prices for freon posted on the wall for customers.... And since pricing usually follows demand I would think Arizona is about as high as they come... And its not quite true that if the car is running the gauge won't read the same.... The freon is affected by the temperature of your condensor which will pick up heat from the radiator even with the fan running the condensor will probably pick up enough heat to raise the system pressure reading some... I would check system pressure cold , engine not running just to get an idea what it actually is... On an 80F day here I will get a static pressure of over 100psi on a charged system...If you have 50 then you typically will have to add one more 12 ounce can to get enough in for the system to run...When its running you slowly charge the system until the sight glass no longer has bubbles in it.... Its better to do this very gradually, add some let it run for awhile ,check sight glass and system pressures, add some more ,wait a few more minutes with it running..etc.. and the A/C blower should alway be on max , with it set to the coldest setting...





Quote Originally Posted by JonE
Thanks Bill, I'll check the site glass. It wasn't 80 degrees here in Minnesota, but I suppose even if the car was running and the compressor wasn't coming on the indy's guage still would read 50 psi? He also claimed that it is possible to over-fill the system. Does this make sense? How do you know when you're full? By the way, he wants $70/lb of R12. Is this reasonable? I thought it was at about $40/lb. Of course this could be his installed price.