PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

pj67coll · #8 08-14-2011, 01:24 PM

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Originally Posted by jbach36

1) What's your take on this scenario? Anyone from the south here who has a Benz that cools well in this August heat?

I live in Phoenix where you will find most older Benz's 70-s thru 90's driving around with their windows down. The AC's have almost all failed.

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2) Who made the a/c units for Benz? I heard they were American made AC Delco.

It was a Chrysler design, at least the control modules were. A travesty of monumental proportions. Mercedes were trying to be too clever by half and as such incorporated one of the worst pieces of over-designed under-engineered junk ever into their cars.

Interestingly the number of W140's I've seen driving around here with their windows down indicates to me that Mercedes have some mental block when it comes to designing decent A/C systems.

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3) Where were the a/c's put on the cars? I talked to one guy who swore that any a/c units, were added on to the car when it arrived in the US, zero were put on in the factory, a claim I doubt.

That is nonsense. Most US bound cars were factory equipped with A/C from the 70's on.

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4) What do you all think about that 'new' freon that says something like "13 degrees colder than R12" on the can? Anyone tried it, and is it any good?

My opinion (and it's worth nothing more than that) is that that's just marketing hype.

Again in my opinion, the nature of A/C systems and the way Mercedes implemented them means that anyone who owns an older Benz and wants their cars A/C to cool decently will have to be prepared to spend a lot of time and money to completely remove, overhaul, rebuild, refit, re-engineer, re-whatever the entire system from the condenser out front to the controls in the dash and everything in between.

- Peter.