Larry,

Good luck with the letter and I hope the repair shop pays.

As a side note to R-134a:

Currently you can buy cans of this in the store. I've heard that this will not be the case for much longer.

The EPA is going to clamp down on R-134a just like R-12, requiring a license to buy it legally.

So, you might build up a supply now.

Ken300D

FWIW, a GREAT place to scavenge R12 is at your local appliance warehouse, providing they haul away old refrigerators/freezers........

Interesting. I took these numbers directly off the "red" R12 sticker in the engine-bay cross-member.

:-) neil

The problem with scavenged R-12 is that it contains oil and who knows what else...moisture; other impurities. There are ways of cleaning it up, but that's usually done by someone buying the stuff and not the appliance guy who's merely sucked it out of the frig/freezer.

In this situation, it's tough to know how much oil to run in your compressor because the juice you're about to add already has some. Too much oil is bad news for the compressor and bad news for the passenger(s)...insufficient cooling.

I have been under the impression that home appliances
 

used to use R22, not R12, and the former was formulated for systems with sealed compressors which required no additives to protect shaft seals, etc. Such stuff would not be good for automotive applications.

I've heard it said that some used R-12 and others used R-22. Either way, reusing extracted juice could be bad news as it would contain oil, irregardless of whether the juice was 12 or 22.

The sticker on my car (201) also says 2.2lbs or 1.0kg :)), I tend to believe the sticker since it was put there by the MB factory