Air Conditioning for 91 240SX

[240novice]

Hi all,

My car, 91 240SX doesn't have cold air blow from the air conditioning system, so I visited a Nissan service center for service. They initially said that they need to convert it to the R134 system with the retrofit kit in order to do leaking test, so I said okay to do that. Later they claimed that any retrofit kit doesn't fit to this model, so they need to change the whole air conditioning system of my car, estimating about $2,000.

I never expected that the AC system of my car can't be converted to the R134 system. Have you had any similar experience? If so, how did you deal with that? Do you still keep the R12 system or did you convert the system to R134?

[MaximA32]

I don't believe that for a second. If your car is USDM, they should have no problems converting from r12 to r134a.

[Ramius83]

I second that 240novice. The usual Buy-it-yourself retrofit kit costs about $80 over the counter at any Autozone, Advanced Auto, PepBoys, etc. This kit comes with two R-12 to R-134A Schrader fittings, and R-12/R-134A PAG oil.

But they are right. We haven't been able to purchase R-12 for the past 4 years now, since our one "source" sold the remaining canisters to a "local public agency." So the retro-fit is the only thing that can be done. I even did a retrofit to a 1978 Datsun 280z last week, no problems what-so-ever. The only thing I encountered was that only one of the fittings supplied in the retro-fit kit would work, the low pressure side. So, I still evacuated and charged the system twice, before vacuuming it for over 1 hour. Then filled the system with the supplied PAG oil, and charged the system to 80% of the total R-12 that is supposed to be in the system.

So to convert your 240sx is an easy task. Either take it back and have a different technician look at it, or go somewhere else.