Xantia 1994 aircon refrigerant, what type?

kosio · Post by **kosio** » 24 Jun 2004, 18:01

Hi to all,
I have a march.1994 (brfore facelift) 1.8i Xantia w/ aircon.
I did a lot of searching (this forum too) on what type of refrigerant my car's aircon uses but found nothing

Read a lot about R12 and R134 and the difference b/ween them but how can I find out which of the two my system needs?
--kosio

tomsheppard · Post by **tomsheppard** » 24 Jun 2004, 19:07

R134a

kosio · Post by **kosio** » 24 Jun 2004, 19:41

Thanks Tom.
Just to clarify. The car has been first sold in Italy hence is a LHD.
I found a FrigAir datasheet for evaporators which claims that their
part number 703.30002 uses R134 and is found in 'Xantia 3/93 ->' (which
I interpret as 'Xantiae since march.93'). It also states in the notes for
this part 'GS - LHD - CAG' from which I only recognise LHD.
Is it possible that the RHD models are fitted with aircons running on R134a
and the LHD models - with a/c running on R134 ?
Doesn't sound very plausable but thought I'd ask...
--kosio

edd001 · Post by **edd001** » 24 Jun 2004, 23:41

hi
all cars these days are running on r134a (uk) due to the gas being toxic.
you will still find that some older cars may still have the old gas in it.
if this is the case then you will have to have a mod done to the connectors in order for the system to take r134a.
you will not be able to get the old gas anymore as it is against the law for people to regas with the old stuff but they will do the mod and refill with the new gas.
hope this helps

kosio · Post by **kosio** » 25 Jun 2004, 14:45

I did some more research and here's what I came up with.
The toxic one is R12, which was banned from production in 1995 (it's still produced and
used in various refrigerating systems and exported (il)legaly however from and to several
countries ... no names....)
The "goog" ones are R134 and R134a - both being the same substance (C2H2F4) but both being
isomers (http://www.iifiir.org/2endossiers_fiche ... cation.htm) - that is same content,
different structure.
R134, I guess, is the "first born" and R134a - the modification.
Which only means that R134 and R134a are different gasses with different properties even
though they have the same content.
I heard some time back that the R134 is the "new refrigerant" and the R134a is the
"backward compatible version" which can be used in slightly modified R12 systems.
Whereas the "clean" R134 cannot be used at all in R12 systems.
BTW, it seems to me that a/c's in cars are using R134 since the first years of the 90s.
If anyone can confirm or deny the above (nonsence perhaps) it will be interesting.
--kosio