Originally Posted by leathermang

The AC is aftermarket only in a strange way.... all ours are that way... some kind of trade agreements at the time caused to be done that way.... you can tell because we all have US threads on the AC system...and even the German FSM shows the US threads .... so they knew it was going to be that way..

If you factor in everything you may find that your impression of the cost of R12 is not correct...since you have an AC preformance complaint sticking to R134a may make it harder to bring his car into ' approval' status.

There are a lot of threads in the archives about fixing AC systems.... You are lucky that you have the Sanden instead of the Delco.... so you are one step up there...even if you have to replace it you are just dealing with a better design...

What tools do you have ?
What kind of DIY experience do you have ?

Greg