Automotive Air Conditioning Information Forum

Tim wrote: ↑Sun Jul 21, 2024 8:56 am Andrew, you might have read my recent post on the Excursion. I'll recap real quick. I reached out to our in-house tech guy. He said, in some cases, especially Ford. They (are) reducing the charge level by about 10%. But remember, a lower charge means less refrigerant to carry oil through the system. So always try to balance this for reliability.

Here's that post https://autoacforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=29855#p29855

So is that the combined oil+refrigerant weight or just the refrigerant and they keep the oil as prior?

Wondering if they change the oil:refrigerant ratio.

Likely a minute point since unless one has a new system (or a fully flushed one) it is impossible to know how much oil is in there.

Still curious about their thinking.

If you saw my Volvo (no high side port) post, a Volvo expert also suggested filling less than specified.

Glad to see things are developing for effectiveness of the system.

It is up now on the recent posts.

Oil should be the same. I emphasize that the charge levels should always be as close as possible to the original charge! Mentioning a lessor charge, as I have, should not be considered a standard with PF condensers. You might get a littler better cooling at the expense of reliability. Then the compressor dies, and people will blame the parts as being crappy. It's a balance and risk one takes undercharging. Compressor companies will nto be claiming to undercharge a system.

This would be a good discussion with the compressor manufacturers class at the MACS convention.

Please note that if you overcharge with 134, performance WILL go down, regardless of oil! Each system has a sweet spot.
If you were getting 38F at center vent, then leave it alone, which you said you did just that