May 4, 2024 • 35 mins
First Interview. Issac Nielsen of Mahle Equipment talking about AC Systems. Current and new technology, coming changes in the handling of 134 refrigerant and correctly charging the system with a machine regardless if 134A or 1234YF Refrigerant.
Ron takes a call from a listener in Va that wants to change the trans fluid on his wife’s Toyota. Ron closes out the hour with some last-minute thoughts from Issac Nielsen, who sent Ron a note post interview, with some additional comments about AC system service and following proper procedure.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Ron Anian, you know the car's in trouble when you
start it up and there's a knocking sound from the
front of the motor.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's eleven thousand miles Overdoeing one hundred and eighty five
thousand mile Lincoln Town Car. Like, yeah, not's so good.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Don't underestimating the car Doctor.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Now, are the center is fairly universal in the sense
that maybe the same center that I would need on
my vehicle would sit on another vehicle. Are they that
universal or are they pretty model specific? They're universal up
to the point of tank design and construction.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Us.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to the radio home of ron Ananian, the Car Doctor.
Since nineteen ninety one. This is where car owners the
world overturned to for their definitive opinion on automotive repair.
If your mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick up
the phone and call in.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
The garage doors.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Are open, but I am here to take your calls
at eight five five five six oh ninety nine hundred
and no.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Thanks, I can arrange that pee running.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Hey, listeners, thanks for stopping buying joining us today. I'm
Monoemium the Car Doctor, obviously, and we're going to kick
off this hour and start right at the top with
Isaac Nielsen. He is a product engineer for Mala Aftermarket,
and with the AC season right around the corner, we
thought it would be a great time to bring Isaac back.
We've had him here before and talk a little bit
about air conditioning, the new, the old, the good, the bad,
(01:31):
and the dues and the don'ts Isaac, welcome back to
the Car Doctor, sir. It's a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
Yeah, thanks for having me Ron.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know, let's start at the beginning. If if someone
is looking to get their AC service, we're not going
to talk about if it's one thirty four, twelve twelve
thirty four yf We're just I want to get the
AC serviced in my you know, five, ten, fifteen year
old car. You know, they're going to take it into
a shop. And what would the person reasonably expect the
(01:59):
shop to do to service that air conditioning properly.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
Well, the very first thing for them to do is
to check the pressures, see if there's even any refrigerant
left in the system. The most of the cases you're
lower basically out of you know, free on a refrigerant
inside that system. So that's going to be indication that
there's a leak in that system, so they'll recover whatever
(02:26):
refrigerant if there is any, from that system, and perform
some sort of leak check on that system. You know,
that's been to be the primary thing is to find
that leak and fix it before they even attempt to
recharge your system. So that's you know, looking for seals
or condenser leaks, something like that a lot of times. Actually,
(02:49):
the most common failure point is the straighter port on
the low side or high side service port right.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Now, depending upon the system. If it's one thirty four,
there's a different leak check procedure. But if we're driving
a newer vehicle, something made since one or when did
twelve thirty four YF come about twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen,
which isn't so much new, that's a seven year old
vehicle now already, it's a very different procedure, right that
they just can't if it has a leak. If it
(03:19):
has a leak on a one thirty four, well we
can kind of fill it even though it's illegal, but
the shop can get away with that. But twelve thirty
four YF, there's safety is in place, to not allow
that that might cause that consumer to get a Hey,
you need you know, five hundred one thousand dollars worth
of repairs.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
Correct, correct, Yes, the one thirty four A machines, they
will do if you do pull a vacuum before a charge,
it will do a vacuum leak check. But there's nothing
on a lot of those one thirty four A machines
that'll prevent you from just doing a straight charge, so
you could bypass the vacuum leak check, which is obviously
(03:58):
defeating the whole purpose of bringing a vehicle in and
the fixing the leak, so that there's you know, obviously
not as not as good on the Okay, all right, well, yeah,
it's it's it's.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's well, it's yeah, take take a breath, brother, it's
it's it's it's it's not as good as it would be.
But your I think your point where you're going is that,
you know, twelve thirty four YF due to the price
of the refrigerant, there's well not just the price, but
we're trying to keep the environment safe and clean. The
machines have a safety in them to require that that
(04:31):
it get repaired before it gets filled, right, isn't that
where you're going with that?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Yeah, correct, Yeah, the twelve thirty four YF machines, they're
legislated that basically they have to pass not only a
vacuum leak check, but also a pressure leak check before
we'll leaven filled. There is no such thing as a
top off with a one two three four YF machine, right,
It has to pass all of the both the vacuum
and the pressure leak testing before to leave an attempt
(04:57):
to charge.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So, just for giggles, Mike, I've got you know, I'm
a customer out here and I'm going to take my
car to an a seat to a shop for air
conditioning service and they don't have a machine. Is that
even possible in this day and age? Can a shop
not have an AC machine regardless of what type of
refrigerant we're talking about.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
No, According to the EPA, if you're going to service
any any vehicle that has refrigerant for pay, you have
to have an EPA certified and registered machine. So there's
no you know, use the old school days of just
using a scale in the gauges for the EPA requirements
(05:42):
that that's illegal and potentially I think it's around a
twenty thousand dollars. Fine, if they find you servicing refrigerant
without having proper equipment.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
And you look at the specificity, which is a great
word for air conditioning, right, it's everything specifics. The specificity
of the amount of refrigerant that goes into some of
these cars. It's such a small amount, there's no guessing.
You know, when I use my end. I've got a
Mala machine. You know that, and everybody else knows that
when I use either one of my Mala machines, my
one thirty four, my one two three four YF machine,
(06:16):
it's so exact in the way that it measured the
refrigerant and and puts it in, and there's there's just
certain procedures. So I don't think, you know, not only
does it hurt the consumer if they're going to a
shop that doesn't have an AC machine, I don't know
how the shop is getting around it. I mean, we
all know that there's cheating going on out there, but
they're doing such a disservice to both themselves, the environment,
(06:36):
and the customer that it ends up becoming a bigger
problem than it needs to be.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
Yeah, I mean all these machines that are on sale
now that are certified to the SAE requirements. They're required
to be able to measure refrigerant and charge refrigerant plus
or minus five grams, so extremely accurate compared to you know,
just looking at a gauge and a set scale.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
When people when a shop goes to charge a car
using a machine, let's talk about the Malla machines for example,
because I'm so familiar with that being what they are.
You know, sometimes there's a problem you can't get to
a low side fitting or you can't get to a
high side fitting. Can you talk about, you know, the
host selection process and why it matters.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Yeah, so you can charge a car with just the
low side or just the high side. And you know
different machines will have different strategies. But you know, for
the Mala machines itself, we default to the lp HP selection,
so that means you are hooking up both sides, both
hoses at the same time. We actually recover through the
(07:49):
high side and the low side during that service, but
we would charge only on the high side. Now, if
you had just the LP connection available, we would of
course recover great directly from the LP port and then
charge partially with the LP port. We'd only do about
(08:11):
a fifty charge because we don't want to flood that
side of the circuit with liquid refrigerant because that would
be bad to lock up the compressor. And then what
we would do is actually prompt the user to start
the vehicle to have a vehicle assisted charge at that point,
so we allow the compressor of the vehicle to draw
(08:33):
on the rest of the charge. So this is good
for those really hot environments where it might be difficult
to fully charge a vehicle. So charging on the low
side and allowing the vehicle to draw in the remaining
charge is almost a guaranteed way to be able to
charge that vehicle.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So not only does the machine ensure that you're getting
an accurate charge, it's doing it in a timely manner
that it doesn't hurt the system. Then it allows the
system to draw in on its own. If you if
you have to go in on a low side only
which correct you know, you're you're you're always in control
and you're always you know, getting the job done and
safety right, because ac can be a dangerous service if
(09:14):
you're not handling things correctly. So you know that machine
is also a part of that as well. Isaac, Let's
let's pull over and take a pause. When we come back.
A couple of things I want you to think about.
I want to talk about if somebody's out there and
they're getting the machine ready for the season, you know,
what should the shops be thinking about. I want you
to talk a little bit about. You know, there was
conversation in the industry about one thirty four A being
(09:36):
banned and I don't know where that went. I that
was supposed to happen last year October November last year.
I don't know where that went. That just sort of
seemed to fall by the wayside. And then we talk
a little bit about, you know, oil recovery and what
the machines can do assisting us to put proper oil
charge back into the system, because that's a big part
of the machines as well. Right, so let's let's talk
(09:58):
about that. I'm running any in the car doctor. I'm
here with Isaac Nielsen from Mala Aftermarket and we'll both
return right after this.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Don't go away.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
For the best in car advice, Give Ron a call
eight five five five six zero nine to nine zero
zero Now back to Ron.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Welcome back, Ronannini and the cardoc Or. I'm here today
as I was before with Isaac Nielsen. He is a
product engineer from Mala after Market. Isaac, you're still there.
I didn't lose you yet, right, Yeah, I'm still here, Ron,
Cool cool beans. Let's start with the big stuff, right,
because that lit up the emails and the conversation on Facebook.
Everybody wanted to know is there a one thirty four band?
Did that ever go through or whatever happened with that?
Speaker 5 (10:45):
Well, from the OI perspective, model year twenty twenty five
vehicles is the absolute last model year to have one
thirty four eight in new vehicles. So really, you know,
since the twenty five five mile year is basically the
middle of this year, I think the EPA says no
earlier than October twenty twenty four. October twenty fourth, twenty
(11:10):
twenty four is the final production date for any new
vehicles with one thirty four A. Everything after basically from
November of this year forward will all be yf in
the light duty sector.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Okay, and then we will will that limit one thirty
four refrigerant availability for service?
Speaker 5 (11:34):
So yeah, the ETA has a mandate to limit total
hfc's in the environment proball production based off of the
twenty twenty volumes. So actually in twenty twenty two and
twenty twenty three they were down to ninety percent of
(11:54):
the twenty twenty volumes. But starting in twenty twenty four
here they are down to a sixty percent maximum manufacturing
capacity from those twenty twenty two volumes. But now that's
that's total HFCs. But it will limit some of the
one thirty four A for sure that is produced and
(12:14):
available in the US.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So we can expect, with probably a fair chance that
we can expect to see an increase a in the
price of one thirty four and be a reduction in
its availability in the coming years.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
Correct, And the EPA is also looking at mandating more
documentation on the transfer of one thirty four A, and
they also want to see a minimum percentage of recovered
one thirty four A with every tank. So in other words,
(12:49):
in the future, it may not be possible to buy
completely new one thirty four A tanks without any reclaimed
one thirty four A involved.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Interesting, So in other words, they're saying, if you don't
take any out, then you're not fixing the car, and
you're defeating the whole purpose of what we're trying to do.
So they're going to monitor the leaks by looking at
what you recover. YEP.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
It'd be very interesting to see how they enforce this
and how this process is going to play out, because
they are looking to have not just any reclaimers being
able to reclaim this one thirty four A, but they
have to be certified. And you know, so your tank
has to come from one of these reclaimers, or at
(13:35):
least a portion of it.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
You know, I think one of the best features on
my mala Ac machines is the printers, right, And I
always thought that it gave me what's the word I'm
looking for, not credibility, but proof. Here's what I recovered,
here's what I charged with. And I've always I've always
said to myself, when does the government get involved? And
(13:58):
you know they're going to basically be looking over my
shoulder at the printer, going, well, he took a pound out,
he put two pounds in. You know this on this car.
You know they're gonna be watching and I'm guessing, will
the machines one day dial in and we took this out,
we put this in and that's how they're going to know.
You know, you wonder if they could do that, and
I guess the technology is there that they could.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
Right, Yeah, the technology is there. However, Yeah, they're right
now they're looking at more of a paper record. They
haven't looked at the conductnected machines, so I mean, at
least far as keeping the shop data for you know,
you guys keep track of where you're at. You know,
(14:39):
that's why our onboard database is kind of nice to
be able to go through there and you don't have
to remember to write down every service all the time. Right,
you can go back through there or you know, print
them to your you know, send them as an email
or something to have a record that way. So that
way you're not having to keep all these paper lugs necessarily.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah. Well, and that's you know, that's the advantage of
a MALA machine because they have that printer built in
and they have that ability to record all that talk
a little bit about we were having a conversation off
air at the start about reducing oil recovery in our
in our last couple of three minutes here, Isaac, you
know what was that all about? About how a shop
can reduce oil recovery and actually make a more effective
(15:19):
recovery of refrigerant. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Yeah, So, I mean obviously, if you are just going
to build a customer, Okay, you recover some oil, you're
going to charge the customer for that oil that you inject.
But if you run a fleet or you know you're
doing you know, some of your own services, then you
want to minimize the amount of oil that you do recover.
And especially on YF machines, every time you recover oil
(15:43):
you need to do a manual oil injection, which can
be kind of a pain and take some time, you know,
just a little bit more time in the service. So
doing certain things, there's some good tips around the vehicle
setup that will help minimize the amount of oil that
you do recover.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And you know, I think one of the tips that
we were talking about was, you know, it was interesting,
like I actually I learned something from you today, Isaac
that and I hadn't I never thought of it like this,
but to do a refrigerant recovery on number one a
cool engine, right, we gave I gave you the example.
So if a car got dropped off on Tuesday, and
you brought it in Wednesday morning, service the AC in
(16:22):
the morning prior to using the AC. The car is cool,
the AC hasn't been used recently, so there's less likelihood
of well, or there's less oil in suspension in the refrigerant, right,
and then the correct and then the machine won't recover
as much. And then you talked a little bit about
the location of the low pressure and the high pressure
(16:44):
service ports in our last two minutes. What was that about.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
Yeah, So, I mean you can take a look at
the vehicle's AC layout and if you see something like
the LP port being relatively close to the compressor itself,
then that there is a high likelihood that during that
initial in rush of refrigement when you do a recovery,
it could pull some of that oil along with that.
(17:10):
So if you especially I've got a fleet service where
this is a known thing, you know, it's very quick
to determine how how much oil you're pulling in, and
if it's a high amount, you know you can hook
up the HP only port and just redo a recovery
on the high side, and that way that would reduce
the chances of doing some oil pulling in some of
(17:33):
that oil.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
You know, there's there's there's always a way with you
guys at Mala. You guys are always thinking. So I
appreciate that, Isaac. I really do listen. I you know,
our clock's running out. It's going to grab us. If
the listeners want more information, where's the website? Where do
they go?
Speaker 5 (17:49):
Service solution dot Mala m A h l E dot com.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Okay, cool beans, And I want to get you back.
There's other things I want to talk to you about,
and I know you're busy. You're so hard to get
ahold of them. We appreciate your value evil time being
here with us today, Isaac is always It was a pleasure, sir,
And you know we expect great things from you guys
as you lead us into the future regarding AC machines,
as you have continued to do so and be the
pioneers that you are. Thanks Isaac, I appreciate your time today.
(18:16):
All right, thank you, Ron, You're very welcome. I'm running
Annie in the car Doctor. I'll return right after this.
Don't go away.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Happy Welcome back listeners, run An Aenie and the car Doctor.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I want to once again thank Isaac Nielsen for taking
the time and talking to us about air conditioning and
you know, the the upcoming season and everything that's going
to be there, because air conditioning is such an important
part of the automobile and we want to be cool,
and obviously you want to do it right, we want
to do it safe. So let's get back to the phone.
Let's go over to Jeff from Waynesboro, Virginia and see
what's going on here. Jeff, welcome to the car doctor, sir,
(18:58):
How can I help?
Speaker 6 (19:00):
All right? Thank you. I've got a twenty fourteen ram
my wife's car. Okay, I'm it's one hundred and twenty
thousand miles, mostly highway miles. We have not changed the transfluid.
And I'm back and forth about whether I should change
three or four quarts whatever comes out of the drain,
(19:23):
and should I use Toyota fluid or can I use
Valveline pholosynthetic or some other brand, or what's your thoughts
on with your thoughts on it? You know, I'm told
one hundred thousand miles don't don't fill with it?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Well, and here's here's the fear. Here's the fear that
everybody has, Jeff, is that transmission fluid is a very
high detergent, scrubbing type of fluid. Okay, back in the
old days, when dirt was invented and I was a kid,
we used to literally are re ring small block chevies
(19:58):
in the bay of the gas station, and we'd clean
the cylinders after we broke the glaze using you know,
we would break the glaze using a cylinder home. You know,
back then, I thinks we're just more so archaic, and
we would break the glaze with the cylinder. We hone
the cylinders, and then we would wash the cylinder walls
with trans fluid. We would take a white rag and
we would scrub it until they were clean, because the
(20:20):
transfluid has such a high detergent, high scrubbing action. You know,
fast forward fifty years, things have changed a little bit.
The concern becomes that transmission fluid because of its detergent
nature and scrubbing action so to speak. You know, transfluid
as it ages, like any hydraulic fluid, it'll leave a varnish,
it'll leave sediment inside the trans So we now induce
(20:40):
this new fluid in there, and what does it do.
It scrubs away at the particulate and it'll break pieces
loose if there's any, all right, and it'll create a problem.
But here's where I kind of have that span of guilt,
or you know, I have no fear. I say change
the fluid, and I'll and I'll tell you why. If
(21:01):
the trans is that varnished up that you know it's
able to find a piece with clean trans fluid and
create an issue, You're going to have a problem anyway.
You know the problem was going to show up at
some point. I like changing fluid on the basis that
my thought process is, I say change the fluid now,
and now you're watching for it. Right, two weeks goes by,
(21:24):
three weeks goes by. If thirty days from the time
you change that fluid nothing's happened, you're in the clear.
If something happens, at least you're prepared. Okay, Now I've
got to put a trans in it, which I was
probably headed for anyway. All right, that being said, this
is a twenty fourteen rav This uses Toyota WUS fluid,
(21:49):
all right, which is their world class fluid. It's different
than their type four. And you know this also doesn't
have a dipstick. Correct, there's no dipstick on.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
This trend right, yep.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
So you're gonna get on a good day, you'll get three,
maybe three and a half quarts out of this trans
This is about a six and a half almost seven
court trands, depending upon the size of the cooler, you'll
get a little over fifty percent out of it. You
could go through the pain and suffering of trying to
undo the trans cooler hoses at the bottom of the radiator.
(22:21):
But the car is ten years old, it's it's probably
been exposed to some Virginia winters. There's definitely been some
corrosive material thrown down on the highway, right, and you
know at that point you're probably gonna break something before
you get it apart. So you know, if we want,
what I would do is and also if we do
(22:43):
you know, if we do fifty percent of the fluid,
it's not such a shock to the system, right, it's
sort of weird. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do
this slowly, yeah, and you know, maybe we'll do it twice.
Maybe we'll do it now and then in five thousand
miles we'll do it again, all right. Ws WS fluid
has an additive package. All transmission fluids have additive packages.
(23:04):
Every manufacturer runs a different you know, they vitamin A,
vitamin B, vitamin C kind of a thing, because in essence,
all transfluid is hydraulic oil obviously to make the hydraulics
of the transmission work. And then engineer A puts in this,
and engineer B puts in that, and engineer C puts
in the other thing, and you know, it varies by manufacturer.
(23:25):
I think you're fine doing it in bite sized pieces.
Whose fluid would I use? I've never you know, I've
looked at this synthetic transfluid thing. I've never seen an advantage.
I'm not saying not to you know, if it makes
you feel better and if it works, hey great. You
don't necessarily need to use Toyota fluid as long as
(23:47):
the fluid you're using is Toyota rated. The truth is okay.
There's a company out there called Idumetsu, which is a
real great name to say. If you can say it,
then you kind of walk around saying, yeah, you do
met suited up, just because it's a tough word to say.
But when you see it, you'll understand. When you read
it on the bottle, Eimetsu is the manufacturer for the
(24:08):
majority of transmission fluids on the Japanese cars out in
the world. All right, you will find it. You will
find it at AutoZone. You will find it. You know,
you might even find your local Toyota dealer is using
e du Metsu fluid or you might find and I've
seen this from time to time. Toyota will send me
bottles when I reorder if I can't get it from
(24:29):
my local supply house, and it'll say manufactured by you
to Metsu on the Toyota bottle, and you go look
at that. So as long as it meets Toyota spec
read the back of the bottle, you know, that's where
all the information is. It's gotta meet WS classification, all right,
and as long as it does that, you're good. I'd
buy buy eight quarts, all right. So this way, when
(24:49):
you do it twice, you're good. When you do this,
you know I would probably do the first time around.
I'd do it after the vehicle sat overnight, so all
the edment's at the bottom. This is a you want
to make sure you're going to take the driver's side
tire off after you get it up on jack stands.
You're going to take the driver's side tire off, take
(25:10):
the plastic skirt. There's a couple of ten millimeter bolts
up there. Take the plastic skirt out and you'll be
looking at the hecks. I believe it's eight or ten milimeter,
I can't remember which. And that's the fill, all right.
So obviously I always whenever I teach mechanics, I always
tell them you want to take the fill out before
you take the drain out, because if the fill's frozen
(25:31):
in place and you take the drain out, now you
got a problem. You know, yeah, yeah, right, you know
it's listen. The first thing whenever I when I when
I when I break in a new mechanic and I
teach them to basics and we're doing an oil change,
all right. You don't want to come to Ron's oil
change class. It takes about two hours to get through
the first one, all right. The first thing I teach
(25:51):
him to do is the driver's side window goes down
as soon as the car comes in the shop, because
if you lock the keys in the car, you don't
want to look stupid and you pop the hood. You
always pop the hood. And they're like, why a go
They're like the drain cap isn't gonna be stuck. I said,
that's right, I said, but the hood latch might be broken,
and then you can't open the hood. Then what do
you do? Oh, it's you. I never thought of that. Well, yeah,
(26:12):
you know. So you know, get the tire off, get
the skirt off, open that drain up, and then you're
gonna find you're gonna put a drain pan underneath. Make
sure it'll hold five quarts because you're only gonna get
out three and a half or four, all right, and
you're gonna take that plug out. There is a plastic
extension of fluid. Is the best way to explain it.
(26:32):
It's the bird bath. It's the bird bath spillover. It's
a six millimeter socket that comes out, and now the
fluid comes out. So you're gonna take out the drain plug,
the metal plug, and then and then the bird bath.
All right, then the spout, the spout over, you know,
that comes out, All the fluid comes out. You want
to take the pan down, Go ahead, I don't think
you need to Toyota is gonna be screen. It's not
(26:55):
a filter. You know. Again, if the screen is that dirty,
you've got a bigger problem, all right, you know, unless
the pan's leaking, and that one, that one little six
millimeter bolt in the corner on the driver's side of
the cradle is always kind of tough. You need a
good ten millimeters swivel and some dextery to get it out.
(27:15):
I think, I think it's a waste of time. But
you know, it's kind of straightforward. And then when you
fill it, you you know, you're gonna fill it just
like procedure. You're gonna put the bird bath piece back in.
You're gonna pump about two quarts in it. You'll start
it up, and then you're gonna start adding fluid until
it spills over, and then you're gonna count drops. Oh,
(27:35):
you know, get it up the temperature. If you want
to put the drain plug, all the drain plugs back
in so it's sealed, Get a couple of quartz, three
quarts in it. Let it run, Let it get warm,
all right. If your hands are kind of tough and
gnarly and you can just grab the bottom of the
pan and you know, just tap it. Okay, Yeah that's warm, Yeah,
that's warm. Yeah, that's coming up to ten. You know,
you get it up to about one hundred and sixty
(27:57):
five one hundred and eighty degrees of temperature. That's about
where you want to be. You could do it by
scan tool. They give you a specific procedure to go
by a number, but you know, you sort of touch
it and go, yeah, it's hot. I've never you know,
I've never found it to vary that much, Jeff.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
But right, this works.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, this, this works. And then and then when you're
done running through the gears, drive to reverse again. I've
never found it to very I've never added fluid. Once
I get to this point, and then I'm just going
to take the bottom plug out. The bird bath will
spill over whatever it is. I top it up, I'm done,
button it up, and you're good to go.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
Let me ask you this. That thing doesn't have a
drop of fluid, no leakage. If I put exactly what
came out of it, I'll probably be fine. But no,
I should not.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely you can. You can do it that
way too. That's the other scientific way. You know. Have
a have a get to get a bottle of washer fluid,
a gallon bottle of washer fluid with a funnel. When
you drain it out. Okay, this is what I took out.
There's what I'm putting back in now. Maybe it's a
smidge low, so you still want to go through the
fluid level check right right right, but you'll you'll be
(29:01):
right in the neighborhood, all right, kiddo.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
So yes, sir, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
You're very welcome. And like I said, you can get
down to your local auto zone. Tell them you're looking
for Toyota WS fluid. It'll probably say you do Metsu
on the bottle. It'll be the Metsu branded and you'll
be just fine.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
All right, got it, got it?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
Certainly respect your opinion.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it. If you need more,
you know where to find me. Yes, sir, appreciate it. Yes, sir,
have a great day. I'm running any in the card Doctor.
We'll be back right after this.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Don't go away and.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
We are back. Welcome back, listeners, running any in the
car Doctor. Here. Let me point out to eight five
five five six zero nine nine zero zero is the
twenty four to seven Car Doctor phone number. You can
call that number anytime, day or night. We're on the
air live Saturdays two to four pm East Coast time
out on the network again eight five five five six
zero nine nine zero zero. That number is twenty four
(30:01):
to seven. You can call leave a message. We are
live on the network Saturdays two to four pm East
Coast time, and if you leave a message, we'll call
you back and get you in the Q for the
next live broadcast, which is as I've said, two to
four pm Eastern time. You can also call in on
the eight five five five six zero nine nine zero
zero phone number two to four pm Eastern time. Whether
(30:21):
you can hear the show in your in your neck
of the woods or not. You know, you don't have
to be listening on your affiliate. If they're taking it delay,
or if they're taking it on a different day, et cetera.
You can call the eight five five number. Trust me,
we're here. Tom will pick up the phone. I'll just
take a quick note a quick minute. I got a
quick note here from Isaac Nielsen from Mala. In our
interview we just had. He said, Hey, Ron, I'm just
thinking about our conversation in our head. I think it's
(30:43):
important to note that no way was I suggesting people
should default to the high pressure port for recovery. Historically,
we MALA default to the low pressure port because if
the car AC system was used recently, then the system
pressures may not have equalized yet, so that means higher
pressure or high pressure on the high high pressure side,
which equals faster gas interests that will actually bring more
(31:04):
oil with it. Also, the high pressure side is likely
to have more oil in suspension since it is post
compressor where most of the oil is being put into suspension.
I'm not sure how it came across, but I just
want to make sure I explained it right and that
nobody hears well. Mala said only to recover from the
high pressure port. No, I don't think anybody did, Isaac.
And to recount that, what Isaac is referencing is that
(31:26):
in AC service, it's important to consider how the vehicle
is just used and where to recover from, as far
as you know, high side, low side or both. In
some cases you know there's moments where you're going to
do that as well. But you know, again, we take
what you just said to heart, Isaac, and we're aware
of it. And so for clarification, if anybody has any
additional questions or comments, by all means you can drop
(31:48):
us a line. You know, the bottom line comes back
to and I don't know if we stress this enough
that if you're working on air conditioning going forward, there
are very stringent rules effect now and very stringent rules
for the future. And some of that is not just
the EPA, it's the design of the systems. The vehicles
(32:09):
today are so specific that there is no margin of
error in order to replicate and have that g it's
just as cold as the day it was news syndrome,
new syndrome. So you know, it takes a machine, it
takes an accurate machine, it takes a trained operator. Air
Conditioning isn't anything like it used to be. You know, well,
i'm twenty years ago, but twenty five years ago where
(32:32):
it was much simpler systems, and the systems were much
larger and more forgiving in the case of slightly erroneous
refrigerant amounts. So today they have to be spot on
in order for them to work correctly. And I want
to mention that as well. I don't know if that
came out enough in my conversation with Isaac, So take
it from there. I'm running ady in the card doctor.
Let me pull over and take a pause. We'll be
(32:52):
back right after this.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Don't go away.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Well that about doesn't for me this hour, listeners, and
I want to thank you for being here and spending
time with me. I know you've got a lot of
choices to do on the weekend, and I'm glad we
can get together and talk cars, and you know we
can all learn and I learned from I learned from
you just as much as you learn from me. I
want to point out regarding air conditioning, we talked an
awful lot about procedure today and the maintenance of the system,
and you know how to properly use a machine. And
(33:25):
we were glad to have Isaac with us. As well
as the calls that we got this hour, We're glad
to have everybody. I want to point out that you know,
ac season is upon us, and there's a couple of
things we didn't talk about. We want to talk about
cabin filters. The actual sometimes referred to as a pollen
filter or the cabin filter. The filter that is inside
the vehicle, usually accessed somewhere in the glovebox area, depending
(33:46):
upon your vehicle, your make, model, et cetera. But it's
important to know that that filter has been serviced and
replaced prior to AC system, and you really should be
doing it every fifteen thousand miles. Maybe a little more,
maybe a little less. It depends on your part of
the country. But you know, pull a filter out at
fifteen thousand miles as a rule of thumb, and you'll
be amazed. Yes, cap'in filters get dirty really, really quickly.
(34:08):
And of course let's go in the shop this week
courtesy of AutoZone and AutoZone pro dot com. Keep in
mind if we're trying to educate our customers about air conditioning.
We talked a lot about air conditioning this hour. Get
out to the if you're using autozonepro dot com, get
out to and look at the website. They've got a
great marketing section there, but they've also got a section
(34:29):
where you can download information so that you know. They
have some great wall charts. They've got some great counter
display stuff that you can educate your customers about air conditioning.
I'm sure you guys know this, but I like them.
I use them. They're good color, and they're very well
laid out and very neat and clean looking, so you
may want to do that too. You can get those
through autozonepro dot com, but definitely a plus for you
(34:52):
and your customers. Keep that in mind till the next time.
I'm on an ady in the car doctor and are
reminding each and every one of you the mechanics are expensive,
their prices
Speaker 6 (35:04):
Ships
Ron Anian, you know the car's in trouble when you
start it up and there's a knocking sound from the
front of the motor.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's eleven thousand miles Overdoeing one hundred and eighty five
thousand mile Lincoln Town Car. Like, yeah, not's so good.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Don't underestimating the car Doctor.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Now, are the center is fairly universal in the sense
that maybe the same center that I would need on
my vehicle would sit on another vehicle. Are they that
universal or are they pretty model specific? They're universal up
to the point of tank design and construction.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Us.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to the radio home of ron Ananian, the Car Doctor.
Since nineteen ninety one. This is where car owners the
world overturned to for their definitive opinion on automotive repair.
If your mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick up
the phone and call in.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
The garage doors.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Are open, but I am here to take your calls
at eight five five five six oh ninety nine hundred
and no.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Thanks, I can arrange that pee running.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Hey, listeners, thanks for stopping buying joining us today. I'm
Monoemium the Car Doctor, obviously, and we're going to kick
off this hour and start right at the top with
Isaac Nielsen. He is a product engineer for Mala Aftermarket,
and with the AC season right around the corner, we
thought it would be a great time to bring Isaac back.
We've had him here before and talk a little bit
about air conditioning, the new, the old, the good, the bad,
(01:31):
and the dues and the don'ts Isaac, welcome back to
the Car Doctor, sir. It's a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
Yeah, thanks for having me Ron.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know, let's start at the beginning. If if someone
is looking to get their AC service, we're not going
to talk about if it's one thirty four, twelve twelve
thirty four yf We're just I want to get the
AC serviced in my you know, five, ten, fifteen year
old car. You know, they're going to take it into
a shop. And what would the person reasonably expect the
(01:59):
shop to do to service that air conditioning properly.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
Well, the very first thing for them to do is
to check the pressures, see if there's even any refrigerant
left in the system. The most of the cases you're
lower basically out of you know, free on a refrigerant
inside that system. So that's going to be indication that
there's a leak in that system, so they'll recover whatever
(02:26):
refrigerant if there is any, from that system, and perform
some sort of leak check on that system. You know,
that's been to be the primary thing is to find
that leak and fix it before they even attempt to
recharge your system. So that's you know, looking for seals
or condenser leaks, something like that a lot of times. Actually,
(02:49):
the most common failure point is the straighter port on
the low side or high side service port right.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Now, depending upon the system. If it's one thirty four,
there's a different leak check procedure. But if we're driving
a newer vehicle, something made since one or when did
twelve thirty four YF come about twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen,
which isn't so much new, that's a seven year old
vehicle now already, it's a very different procedure, right that
they just can't if it has a leak. If it
(03:19):
has a leak on a one thirty four, well we
can kind of fill it even though it's illegal, but
the shop can get away with that. But twelve thirty
four YF, there's safety is in place, to not allow
that that might cause that consumer to get a Hey,
you need you know, five hundred one thousand dollars worth
of repairs.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
Correct, correct, Yes, the one thirty four A machines, they
will do if you do pull a vacuum before a charge,
it will do a vacuum leak check. But there's nothing
on a lot of those one thirty four A machines
that'll prevent you from just doing a straight charge, so
you could bypass the vacuum leak check, which is obviously
(03:58):
defeating the whole purpose of bringing a vehicle in and
the fixing the leak, so that there's you know, obviously
not as not as good on the Okay, all right, well, yeah,
it's it's it's.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's well, it's yeah, take take a breath, brother, it's
it's it's it's it's not as good as it would be.
But your I think your point where you're going is that,
you know, twelve thirty four YF due to the price
of the refrigerant, there's well not just the price, but
we're trying to keep the environment safe and clean. The
machines have a safety in them to require that that
(04:31):
it get repaired before it gets filled, right, isn't that
where you're going with that?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Yeah, correct, Yeah, the twelve thirty four YF machines, they're
legislated that basically they have to pass not only a
vacuum leak check, but also a pressure leak check before
we'll leaven filled. There is no such thing as a
top off with a one two three four YF machine, right,
It has to pass all of the both the vacuum
and the pressure leak testing before to leave an attempt
(04:57):
to charge.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So, just for giggles, Mike, I've got you know, I'm
a customer out here and I'm going to take my
car to an a seat to a shop for air
conditioning service and they don't have a machine. Is that
even possible in this day and age? Can a shop
not have an AC machine regardless of what type of
refrigerant we're talking about.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
No, According to the EPA, if you're going to service
any any vehicle that has refrigerant for pay, you have
to have an EPA certified and registered machine. So there's
no you know, use the old school days of just
using a scale in the gauges for the EPA requirements
(05:42):
that that's illegal and potentially I think it's around a
twenty thousand dollars. Fine, if they find you servicing refrigerant
without having proper equipment.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
And you look at the specificity, which is a great
word for air conditioning, right, it's everything specifics. The specificity
of the amount of refrigerant that goes into some of
these cars. It's such a small amount, there's no guessing.
You know, when I use my end. I've got a
Mala machine. You know that, and everybody else knows that
when I use either one of my Mala machines, my
one thirty four, my one two three four YF machine,
(06:16):
it's so exact in the way that it measured the
refrigerant and and puts it in, and there's there's just
certain procedures. So I don't think, you know, not only
does it hurt the consumer if they're going to a
shop that doesn't have an AC machine, I don't know
how the shop is getting around it. I mean, we
all know that there's cheating going on out there, but
they're doing such a disservice to both themselves, the environment,
(06:36):
and the customer that it ends up becoming a bigger
problem than it needs to be.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
Yeah, I mean all these machines that are on sale
now that are certified to the SAE requirements. They're required
to be able to measure refrigerant and charge refrigerant plus
or minus five grams, so extremely accurate compared to you know,
just looking at a gauge and a set scale.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
When people when a shop goes to charge a car
using a machine, let's talk about the Malla machines for example,
because I'm so familiar with that being what they are.
You know, sometimes there's a problem you can't get to
a low side fitting or you can't get to a
high side fitting. Can you talk about, you know, the
host selection process and why it matters.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Yeah, so you can charge a car with just the
low side or just the high side. And you know
different machines will have different strategies. But you know, for
the Mala machines itself, we default to the lp HP selection,
so that means you are hooking up both sides, both
hoses at the same time. We actually recover through the
(07:49):
high side and the low side during that service, but
we would charge only on the high side. Now, if
you had just the LP connection available, we would of
course recover great directly from the LP port and then
charge partially with the LP port. We'd only do about
(08:11):
a fifty charge because we don't want to flood that
side of the circuit with liquid refrigerant because that would
be bad to lock up the compressor. And then what
we would do is actually prompt the user to start
the vehicle to have a vehicle assisted charge at that point,
so we allow the compressor of the vehicle to draw
(08:33):
on the rest of the charge. So this is good
for those really hot environments where it might be difficult
to fully charge a vehicle. So charging on the low
side and allowing the vehicle to draw in the remaining
charge is almost a guaranteed way to be able to
charge that vehicle.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So not only does the machine ensure that you're getting
an accurate charge, it's doing it in a timely manner
that it doesn't hurt the system. Then it allows the
system to draw in on its own. If you if
you have to go in on a low side only
which correct you know, you're you're you're always in control
and you're always you know, getting the job done and
safety right, because ac can be a dangerous service if
(09:14):
you're not handling things correctly. So you know that machine
is also a part of that as well. Isaac, Let's
let's pull over and take a pause. When we come back.
A couple of things I want you to think about.
I want to talk about if somebody's out there and
they're getting the machine ready for the season, you know,
what should the shops be thinking about. I want you
to talk a little bit about. You know, there was
conversation in the industry about one thirty four A being
(09:36):
banned and I don't know where that went. I that
was supposed to happen last year October November last year.
I don't know where that went. That just sort of
seemed to fall by the wayside. And then we talk
a little bit about, you know, oil recovery and what
the machines can do assisting us to put proper oil
charge back into the system, because that's a big part
of the machines as well. Right, so let's let's talk
(09:58):
about that. I'm running any in the car doctor. I'm
here with Isaac Nielsen from Mala Aftermarket and we'll both
return right after this.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Don't go away.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
For the best in car advice, Give Ron a call
eight five five five six zero nine to nine zero
zero Now back to Ron.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Welcome back, Ronannini and the cardoc Or. I'm here today
as I was before with Isaac Nielsen. He is a
product engineer from Mala after Market. Isaac, you're still there.
I didn't lose you yet, right, Yeah, I'm still here, Ron,
Cool cool beans. Let's start with the big stuff, right,
because that lit up the emails and the conversation on Facebook.
Everybody wanted to know is there a one thirty four band?
Did that ever go through or whatever happened with that?
Speaker 5 (10:45):
Well, from the OI perspective, model year twenty twenty five
vehicles is the absolute last model year to have one
thirty four eight in new vehicles. So really, you know,
since the twenty five five mile year is basically the
middle of this year, I think the EPA says no
earlier than October twenty twenty four. October twenty fourth, twenty
(11:10):
twenty four is the final production date for any new
vehicles with one thirty four A. Everything after basically from
November of this year forward will all be yf in
the light duty sector.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Okay, and then we will will that limit one thirty
four refrigerant availability for service?
Speaker 5 (11:34):
So yeah, the ETA has a mandate to limit total
hfc's in the environment proball production based off of the
twenty twenty volumes. So actually in twenty twenty two and
twenty twenty three they were down to ninety percent of
(11:54):
the twenty twenty volumes. But starting in twenty twenty four
here they are down to a sixty percent maximum manufacturing
capacity from those twenty twenty two volumes. But now that's
that's total HFCs. But it will limit some of the
one thirty four A for sure that is produced and
(12:14):
available in the US.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So we can expect, with probably a fair chance that
we can expect to see an increase a in the
price of one thirty four and be a reduction in
its availability in the coming years.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
Correct, And the EPA is also looking at mandating more
documentation on the transfer of one thirty four A, and
they also want to see a minimum percentage of recovered
one thirty four A with every tank. So in other words,
(12:49):
in the future, it may not be possible to buy
completely new one thirty four A tanks without any reclaimed
one thirty four A involved.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Interesting, So in other words, they're saying, if you don't
take any out, then you're not fixing the car, and
you're defeating the whole purpose of what we're trying to do.
So they're going to monitor the leaks by looking at
what you recover. YEP.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
It'd be very interesting to see how they enforce this
and how this process is going to play out, because
they are looking to have not just any reclaimers being
able to reclaim this one thirty four A, but they
have to be certified. And you know, so your tank
has to come from one of these reclaimers, or at
(13:35):
least a portion of it.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
You know, I think one of the best features on
my mala Ac machines is the printers, right, And I
always thought that it gave me what's the word I'm
looking for, not credibility, but proof. Here's what I recovered,
here's what I charged with. And I've always I've always
said to myself, when does the government get involved? And
(13:58):
you know they're going to basically be looking over my
shoulder at the printer, going, well, he took a pound out,
he put two pounds in. You know this on this car.
You know they're gonna be watching and I'm guessing, will
the machines one day dial in and we took this out,
we put this in and that's how they're going to know.
You know, you wonder if they could do that, and
I guess the technology is there that they could.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
Right, Yeah, the technology is there. However, Yeah, they're right
now they're looking at more of a paper record. They
haven't looked at the conductnected machines, so I mean, at
least far as keeping the shop data for you know,
you guys keep track of where you're at. You know,
(14:39):
that's why our onboard database is kind of nice to
be able to go through there and you don't have
to remember to write down every service all the time. Right,
you can go back through there or you know, print
them to your you know, send them as an email
or something to have a record that way. So that
way you're not having to keep all these paper lugs necessarily.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah. Well, and that's you know, that's the advantage of
a MALA machine because they have that printer built in
and they have that ability to record all that talk
a little bit about we were having a conversation off
air at the start about reducing oil recovery in our
in our last couple of three minutes here, Isaac, you
know what was that all about? About how a shop
can reduce oil recovery and actually make a more effective
(15:19):
recovery of refrigerant. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Yeah, So, I mean obviously, if you are just going
to build a customer, Okay, you recover some oil, you're
going to charge the customer for that oil that you inject.
But if you run a fleet or you know you're
doing you know, some of your own services, then you
want to minimize the amount of oil that you do recover.
And especially on YF machines, every time you recover oil
(15:43):
you need to do a manual oil injection, which can
be kind of a pain and take some time, you know,
just a little bit more time in the service. So
doing certain things, there's some good tips around the vehicle
setup that will help minimize the amount of oil that
you do recover.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And you know, I think one of the tips that
we were talking about was, you know, it was interesting,
like I actually I learned something from you today, Isaac
that and I hadn't I never thought of it like this,
but to do a refrigerant recovery on number one a
cool engine, right, we gave I gave you the example.
So if a car got dropped off on Tuesday, and
you brought it in Wednesday morning, service the AC in
(16:22):
the morning prior to using the AC. The car is cool,
the AC hasn't been used recently, so there's less likelihood
of well, or there's less oil in suspension in the refrigerant, right,
and then the correct and then the machine won't recover
as much. And then you talked a little bit about
the location of the low pressure and the high pressure
(16:44):
service ports in our last two minutes. What was that about.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
Yeah, So, I mean you can take a look at
the vehicle's AC layout and if you see something like
the LP port being relatively close to the compressor itself,
then that there is a high likelihood that during that
initial in rush of refrigement when you do a recovery,
it could pull some of that oil along with that.
(17:10):
So if you especially I've got a fleet service where
this is a known thing, you know, it's very quick
to determine how how much oil you're pulling in, and
if it's a high amount, you know you can hook
up the HP only port and just redo a recovery
on the high side, and that way that would reduce
the chances of doing some oil pulling in some of
(17:33):
that oil.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
You know, there's there's there's always a way with you
guys at Mala. You guys are always thinking. So I
appreciate that, Isaac. I really do listen. I you know,
our clock's running out. It's going to grab us. If
the listeners want more information, where's the website? Where do
they go?
Speaker 5 (17:49):
Service solution dot Mala m A h l E dot com.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Okay, cool beans, And I want to get you back.
There's other things I want to talk to you about,
and I know you're busy. You're so hard to get
ahold of them. We appreciate your value evil time being
here with us today, Isaac is always It was a pleasure, sir,
And you know we expect great things from you guys
as you lead us into the future regarding AC machines,
as you have continued to do so and be the
pioneers that you are. Thanks Isaac, I appreciate your time today.
(18:16):
All right, thank you, Ron, You're very welcome. I'm running
Annie in the car Doctor. I'll return right after this.
Don't go away.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Happy Welcome back listeners, run An Aenie and the car Doctor.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I want to once again thank Isaac Nielsen for taking
the time and talking to us about air conditioning and
you know, the the upcoming season and everything that's going
to be there, because air conditioning is such an important
part of the automobile and we want to be cool,
and obviously you want to do it right, we want
to do it safe. So let's get back to the phone.
Let's go over to Jeff from Waynesboro, Virginia and see
what's going on here. Jeff, welcome to the car doctor, sir,
(18:58):
How can I help?
Speaker 6 (19:00):
All right? Thank you. I've got a twenty fourteen ram
my wife's car. Okay, I'm it's one hundred and twenty
thousand miles, mostly highway miles. We have not changed the transfluid.
And I'm back and forth about whether I should change
three or four quarts whatever comes out of the drain,
(19:23):
and should I use Toyota fluid or can I use
Valveline pholosynthetic or some other brand, or what's your thoughts
on with your thoughts on it? You know, I'm told
one hundred thousand miles don't don't fill with it?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Well, and here's here's the fear. Here's the fear that
everybody has, Jeff, is that transmission fluid is a very
high detergent, scrubbing type of fluid. Okay, back in the
old days, when dirt was invented and I was a kid,
we used to literally are re ring small block chevies
(19:58):
in the bay of the gas station, and we'd clean
the cylinders after we broke the glaze using you know,
we would break the glaze using a cylinder home. You know,
back then, I thinks we're just more so archaic, and
we would break the glaze with the cylinder. We hone
the cylinders, and then we would wash the cylinder walls
with trans fluid. We would take a white rag and
we would scrub it until they were clean, because the
(20:20):
transfluid has such a high detergent, high scrubbing action. You know,
fast forward fifty years, things have changed a little bit.
The concern becomes that transmission fluid because of its detergent
nature and scrubbing action so to speak. You know, transfluid
as it ages, like any hydraulic fluid, it'll leave a varnish,
it'll leave sediment inside the trans So we now induce
(20:40):
this new fluid in there, and what does it do.
It scrubs away at the particulate and it'll break pieces
loose if there's any, all right, and it'll create a problem.
But here's where I kind of have that span of guilt,
or you know, I have no fear. I say change
the fluid, and I'll and I'll tell you why. If
(21:01):
the trans is that varnished up that you know it's
able to find a piece with clean trans fluid and
create an issue, You're going to have a problem anyway.
You know the problem was going to show up at
some point. I like changing fluid on the basis that
my thought process is, I say change the fluid now,
and now you're watching for it. Right, two weeks goes by,
(21:24):
three weeks goes by. If thirty days from the time
you change that fluid nothing's happened, you're in the clear.
If something happens, at least you're prepared. Okay, Now I've
got to put a trans in it, which I was
probably headed for anyway. All right, that being said, this
is a twenty fourteen rav This uses Toyota WUS fluid,
(21:49):
all right, which is their world class fluid. It's different
than their type four. And you know this also doesn't
have a dipstick. Correct, there's no dipstick on.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
This trend right, yep.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
So you're gonna get on a good day, you'll get three,
maybe three and a half quarts out of this trans
This is about a six and a half almost seven
court trands, depending upon the size of the cooler, you'll
get a little over fifty percent out of it. You
could go through the pain and suffering of trying to
undo the trans cooler hoses at the bottom of the radiator.
(22:21):
But the car is ten years old, it's it's probably
been exposed to some Virginia winters. There's definitely been some
corrosive material thrown down on the highway, right, and you
know at that point you're probably gonna break something before
you get it apart. So you know, if we want,
what I would do is and also if we do
(22:43):
you know, if we do fifty percent of the fluid,
it's not such a shock to the system, right, it's
sort of weird. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do
this slowly, yeah, and you know, maybe we'll do it twice.
Maybe we'll do it now and then in five thousand
miles we'll do it again, all right. Ws WS fluid
has an additive package. All transmission fluids have additive packages.
(23:04):
Every manufacturer runs a different you know, they vitamin A,
vitamin B, vitamin C kind of a thing, because in essence,
all transfluid is hydraulic oil obviously to make the hydraulics
of the transmission work. And then engineer A puts in this,
and engineer B puts in that, and engineer C puts
in the other thing, and you know, it varies by manufacturer.
(23:25):
I think you're fine doing it in bite sized pieces.
Whose fluid would I use? I've never you know, I've
looked at this synthetic transfluid thing. I've never seen an advantage.
I'm not saying not to you know, if it makes
you feel better and if it works, hey great. You
don't necessarily need to use Toyota fluid as long as
(23:47):
the fluid you're using is Toyota rated. The truth is okay.
There's a company out there called Idumetsu, which is a
real great name to say. If you can say it,
then you kind of walk around saying, yeah, you do
met suited up, just because it's a tough word to say.
But when you see it, you'll understand. When you read
it on the bottle, Eimetsu is the manufacturer for the
(24:08):
majority of transmission fluids on the Japanese cars out in
the world. All right, you will find it. You will
find it at AutoZone. You will find it. You know,
you might even find your local Toyota dealer is using
e du Metsu fluid or you might find and I've
seen this from time to time. Toyota will send me
bottles when I reorder if I can't get it from
(24:29):
my local supply house, and it'll say manufactured by you
to Metsu on the Toyota bottle, and you go look
at that. So as long as it meets Toyota spec
read the back of the bottle, you know, that's where
all the information is. It's gotta meet WS classification, all right,
and as long as it does that, you're good. I'd
buy buy eight quarts, all right. So this way, when
(24:49):
you do it twice, you're good. When you do this,
you know I would probably do the first time around.
I'd do it after the vehicle sat overnight, so all
the edment's at the bottom. This is a you want
to make sure you're going to take the driver's side
tire off after you get it up on jack stands.
You're going to take the driver's side tire off, take
(25:10):
the plastic skirt. There's a couple of ten millimeter bolts
up there. Take the plastic skirt out and you'll be
looking at the hecks. I believe it's eight or ten milimeter,
I can't remember which. And that's the fill, all right.
So obviously I always whenever I teach mechanics, I always
tell them you want to take the fill out before
you take the drain out, because if the fill's frozen
(25:31):
in place and you take the drain out, now you
got a problem. You know, yeah, yeah, right, you know
it's listen. The first thing whenever I when I when
I when I break in a new mechanic and I
teach them to basics and we're doing an oil change,
all right. You don't want to come to Ron's oil
change class. It takes about two hours to get through
the first one, all right. The first thing I teach
(25:51):
him to do is the driver's side window goes down
as soon as the car comes in the shop, because
if you lock the keys in the car, you don't
want to look stupid and you pop the hood. You
always pop the hood. And they're like, why a go
They're like the drain cap isn't gonna be stuck. I said,
that's right, I said, but the hood latch might be broken,
and then you can't open the hood. Then what do
you do? Oh, it's you. I never thought of that. Well, yeah,
(26:12):
you know. So you know, get the tire off, get
the skirt off, open that drain up, and then you're
gonna find you're gonna put a drain pan underneath. Make
sure it'll hold five quarts because you're only gonna get
out three and a half or four, all right, and
you're gonna take that plug out. There is a plastic
extension of fluid. Is the best way to explain it.
(26:32):
It's the bird bath. It's the bird bath spillover. It's
a six millimeter socket that comes out, and now the
fluid comes out. So you're gonna take out the drain plug,
the metal plug, and then and then the bird bath.
All right, then the spout, the spout over, you know,
that comes out, All the fluid comes out. You want
to take the pan down, Go ahead, I don't think
you need to Toyota is gonna be screen. It's not
(26:55):
a filter. You know. Again, if the screen is that dirty,
you've got a bigger problem, all right, you know, unless
the pan's leaking, and that one, that one little six
millimeter bolt in the corner on the driver's side of
the cradle is always kind of tough. You need a
good ten millimeters swivel and some dextery to get it out.
(27:15):
I think, I think it's a waste of time. But
you know, it's kind of straightforward. And then when you
fill it, you you know, you're gonna fill it just
like procedure. You're gonna put the bird bath piece back in.
You're gonna pump about two quarts in it. You'll start
it up, and then you're gonna start adding fluid until
it spills over, and then you're gonna count drops. Oh,
(27:35):
you know, get it up the temperature. If you want
to put the drain plug, all the drain plugs back
in so it's sealed, Get a couple of quartz, three
quarts in it. Let it run, Let it get warm,
all right. If your hands are kind of tough and
gnarly and you can just grab the bottom of the
pan and you know, just tap it. Okay, Yeah that's warm, Yeah,
that's warm. Yeah, that's coming up to ten. You know,
you get it up to about one hundred and sixty
(27:57):
five one hundred and eighty degrees of temperature. That's about
where you want to be. You could do it by
scan tool. They give you a specific procedure to go
by a number, but you know, you sort of touch
it and go, yeah, it's hot. I've never you know,
I've never found it to vary that much, Jeff.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
But right, this works.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, this, this works. And then and then when you're
done running through the gears, drive to reverse again. I've
never found it to very I've never added fluid. Once
I get to this point, and then I'm just going
to take the bottom plug out. The bird bath will
spill over whatever it is. I top it up, I'm done,
button it up, and you're good to go.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
Let me ask you this. That thing doesn't have a
drop of fluid, no leakage. If I put exactly what
came out of it, I'll probably be fine. But no,
I should not.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely you can. You can do it that
way too. That's the other scientific way. You know. Have
a have a get to get a bottle of washer fluid,
a gallon bottle of washer fluid with a funnel. When
you drain it out. Okay, this is what I took out.
There's what I'm putting back in now. Maybe it's a
smidge low, so you still want to go through the
fluid level check right right right, but you'll you'll be
(29:01):
right in the neighborhood, all right, kiddo.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
So yes, sir, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
You're very welcome. And like I said, you can get
down to your local auto zone. Tell them you're looking
for Toyota WS fluid. It'll probably say you do Metsu
on the bottle. It'll be the Metsu branded and you'll
be just fine.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
All right, got it, got it?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
Certainly respect your opinion.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it. If you need more,
you know where to find me. Yes, sir, appreciate it. Yes, sir,
have a great day. I'm running any in the card Doctor.
We'll be back right after this.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Don't go away and.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
We are back. Welcome back, listeners, running any in the
car Doctor. Here. Let me point out to eight five
five five six zero nine nine zero zero is the
twenty four to seven Car Doctor phone number. You can
call that number anytime, day or night. We're on the
air live Saturdays two to four pm East Coast time
out on the network again eight five five five six
zero nine nine zero zero. That number is twenty four
(30:01):
to seven. You can call leave a message. We are
live on the network Saturdays two to four pm East
Coast time, and if you leave a message, we'll call
you back and get you in the Q for the
next live broadcast, which is as I've said, two to
four pm Eastern time. You can also call in on
the eight five five five six zero nine nine zero
zero phone number two to four pm Eastern time. Whether
(30:21):
you can hear the show in your in your neck
of the woods or not. You know, you don't have
to be listening on your affiliate. If they're taking it delay,
or if they're taking it on a different day, et cetera.
You can call the eight five five number. Trust me,
we're here. Tom will pick up the phone. I'll just
take a quick note a quick minute. I got a
quick note here from Isaac Nielsen from Mala. In our
interview we just had. He said, Hey, Ron, I'm just
thinking about our conversation in our head. I think it's
(30:43):
important to note that no way was I suggesting people
should default to the high pressure port for recovery. Historically,
we MALA default to the low pressure port because if
the car AC system was used recently, then the system
pressures may not have equalized yet, so that means higher
pressure or high pressure on the high high pressure side,
which equals faster gas interests that will actually bring more
(31:04):
oil with it. Also, the high pressure side is likely
to have more oil in suspension since it is post
compressor where most of the oil is being put into suspension.
I'm not sure how it came across, but I just
want to make sure I explained it right and that
nobody hears well. Mala said only to recover from the
high pressure port. No, I don't think anybody did, Isaac.
And to recount that, what Isaac is referencing is that
(31:26):
in AC service, it's important to consider how the vehicle
is just used and where to recover from, as far
as you know, high side, low side or both. In
some cases you know there's moments where you're going to
do that as well. But you know, again, we take
what you just said to heart, Isaac, and we're aware
of it. And so for clarification, if anybody has any
additional questions or comments, by all means you can drop
(31:48):
us a line. You know, the bottom line comes back
to and I don't know if we stress this enough
that if you're working on air conditioning going forward, there
are very stringent rules effect now and very stringent rules
for the future. And some of that is not just
the EPA, it's the design of the systems. The vehicles
(32:09):
today are so specific that there is no margin of
error in order to replicate and have that g it's
just as cold as the day it was news syndrome,
new syndrome. So you know, it takes a machine, it
takes an accurate machine, it takes a trained operator. Air
Conditioning isn't anything like it used to be. You know, well,
i'm twenty years ago, but twenty five years ago where
(32:32):
it was much simpler systems, and the systems were much
larger and more forgiving in the case of slightly erroneous
refrigerant amounts. So today they have to be spot on
in order for them to work correctly. And I want
to mention that as well. I don't know if that
came out enough in my conversation with Isaac, So take
it from there. I'm running ady in the card doctor.
Let me pull over and take a pause. We'll be
(32:52):
back right after this.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Don't go away.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Well that about doesn't for me this hour, listeners, and
I want to thank you for being here and spending
time with me. I know you've got a lot of
choices to do on the weekend, and I'm glad we
can get together and talk cars, and you know we
can all learn and I learned from I learned from
you just as much as you learn from me. I
want to point out regarding air conditioning, we talked an
awful lot about procedure today and the maintenance of the system,
and you know how to properly use a machine. And
(33:25):
we were glad to have Isaac with us. As well
as the calls that we got this hour, We're glad
to have everybody. I want to point out that you know,
ac season is upon us, and there's a couple of
things we didn't talk about. We want to talk about
cabin filters. The actual sometimes referred to as a pollen
filter or the cabin filter. The filter that is inside
the vehicle, usually accessed somewhere in the glovebox area, depending
(33:46):
upon your vehicle, your make, model, et cetera. But it's
important to know that that filter has been serviced and
replaced prior to AC system, and you really should be
doing it every fifteen thousand miles. Maybe a little more,
maybe a little less. It depends on your part of
the country. But you know, pull a filter out at
fifteen thousand miles as a rule of thumb, and you'll
be amazed. Yes, cap'in filters get dirty really, really quickly.
(34:08):
And of course let's go in the shop this week
courtesy of AutoZone and AutoZone pro dot com. Keep in
mind if we're trying to educate our customers about air conditioning.
We talked a lot about air conditioning this hour. Get
out to the if you're using autozonepro dot com, get
out to and look at the website. They've got a
great marketing section there, but they've also got a section
(34:29):
where you can download information so that you know. They
have some great wall charts. They've got some great counter
display stuff that you can educate your customers about air conditioning.
I'm sure you guys know this, but I like them.
I use them. They're good color, and they're very well
laid out and very neat and clean looking, so you
may want to do that too. You can get those
through autozonepro dot com, but definitely a plus for you
(34:52):
and your customers. Keep that in mind till the next time.
I'm on an ady in the car doctor and are
reminding each and every one of you the mechanics are expensive,
their prices
Speaker 6 (35:04):
Ships
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