[s-cars] 94 S4 AC Charging

[Greg Wolters]

Hi All!

My 94 S4 stopped blowing cold air.  After some research and advice from
this list, I decided that I should not attempt to recharge it myself.  I
took it to my local wrench.

Told service desk guy, as per Bentley, "Only a high pressure service
valve is used for A/C system servicing.  A low pressure service valve is
not installed in the A/C system.  Perform all A/C system service
operations (i.e. discharging, evacuating and charging) through the high
pressure service valve only."

He said "no problem, we do cars like that all the time."  I ask if I
should print out some pages from the Bentley CD... he said there was no
need to.  I drop off the car and a few minutes later I get a call from
the service tech.  He said he'd have to remove "some things" to get to
the low pressure service valve.  I said there is no low pressure service
valve.  Should I print out some info?  Sure...

I spend the next 30 minutes printing Bentley pages (I have nothing else
to do :)).  I drive there, he's got a hose hooked up to the high
pressure service valve and things seem to be going along well.  I leave
the pages for his review and go back home.

Then I get a call and he said that after evacuating, he tried 3 times to
charge the system.  Each time the system accepted a very small amount of
refrigerant and then stopped.  He said it might be his machine, but that
he had successfully charged a car earlier that day.  Bentley said to
"Evacuate refrigerant system for a minimum of 30 minutes", and I wonder
if he did so.

I'm thinking of going to a different mechanic but wanted to see if
anyone on the list has had the same thing happen to them.

TIA for feedback.

Greg Wolters
Nevada City, CA
94 S4