Its strange, a lot of people haven't heard of the EPA friendly alternatives to R134a... I do some work of an importer and from experience, most imports with R12 systems are degassed prior to leaving japan, to avoid complications with the EPA when they land. Pretty much all the companies I've spoken to in melbourne absolutely insist on upgrading the system to R134a, which I reckon is rubbish. An alternative like the HyChill HR12 would be quite viable for owners of these types of cars.
From our point of view, it's not so strange that awareness amongst the general public is so low. We're a small Australian family company competing against the largest chemical companies in the world (DuPont, ICI etc). Before HyChill, they had monopoly control of this market. Monopoly control means financial control and information control. When these alternatives were first commercially introduced over a decade ago these big chemical companies lobbied industry and government heavily using half truths and blatant lies to try and scare senior management and political types away from these alternatives. They showed videos of cars blowing up and claimed this is what would happen if you used these alternative refrigerants. Really dodgy stuff... but most of the non-technical senior management and political types bought it hook-line-and-sinker. So even though a number of major vehicle OEM's have tested HyChill and their engineers love it, as soon as a proposal goes up the management chain it goes into a black hole.
Even if we had the money to do consumer marketing (such as TV), we'd only be encouraging these behemoths to respond, and they would do it with their usual lies and half-truths. The average consumer simply does not have sufficient technical background to discern who is telling the truth. A consumer marketing war would play into their hands. They would spend us into the ground.
But seeing as I have you guys to ask questions to, there's something that one of my mates commented on that might need clarification. When I told him it was a hydrocarbon based refrigerant he commented that "he wasn't gonna put natural gas into his aircon system in a skyline", especially since the aircon lines are so close to the turbo which can get very hot. What are the dangers of using HR12? I assume being a hydrocarbon it is flammable?
Forgive the length of this response below. I just thought I'd err on the side of giving too much information as I feel somewhat of a moral obligation to get this info out there whenever an opportunity presents itself.
The fluid in an AC system has always been flammable. This is a common misconception which the big chemical companies feel no urgency to correct, for obvious marketing reasons. An AC system contains both the refrigerant (which is combustible) and the lubricant (which is also combustible).
The marketing 'spin' trick here by the big chemical companies is that their gases (like R-134a) fall into the "non-flammable" hazard class for storage and handling, and so by making the general statement that their gas is 'non-flammable', they leave people to make the (incorrect) presumption that there is no flammability risk in an AC system using that gas.
About the only thing that is true regarding flammability is that HyChill gas is flammable in under a somewhat wider range of circumstances than R-12 or R-134a. This results in a slightly higher flammability risk. However, a balanced assessment of all the failure modes and probabilities demonstrates that the overall risk is at least no worse with HyChill, or in fact slightly lower.
How could it be lower, you ask? Well, other stuff the spin-doctors won't volunteer to tell you is that R-12 and R-134a reduce into toxic chemicals, especially when combusted. R-12 combustion produces mustard gas (remember that stuff? It's used in chemical weapons). R-134a combustion also produces toxic products of combustion, but you don't even need to combust R-134a for things to get dangerous - it's toxic just to breathe in (causes trifluoroacetic acid to be developed in the body, which is not a good thing) and also produces a bunch of toxins when merely heated above ambient (and how hot is it under your bonnet?). It also produces acids when exposed to water (thus the need for a 'dryer' in your AC circuit, but these only reduce the problem rather than eliminate it).
If that wasn't enough, R-134a is so chemically unstable it can't be used with many standard lubricants, and the most commonly used oils used with R-134a are also toxic (not even skin contact is advisable).
HyChill refrigerant, on the other hand, is a naturally occuring gas that is non-toxic, does not form toxic acids etc if combusted, does not react with water and can be used with simple non-toxic mineral oils.
To put practical numbers on the flammability issue, there have been 15+ years of widespread and safe use of hydrocarbon refrigerants in place of the traditional ("fluorocarbon") refrigerants. During that period there has been over 20 million car-user-years of use of hydrocarbons in AC worldwide with not one recorded case of cabin fire or death resulting from use. During that whole time there has been only a couple of documented cases of engine bay fire triggered by an AC system failure. One was an R-134a system (as I said, they are flammable too). I'm aware of 2 or 3 AC system fires (in the engine bay) that were using hydrocarbons, one of which should never have been operated in the first place as it had an incorrectly installed aftermarket AC system and the other which was due to the service tech failing to abide by basic safety procedures. To get perspective: contrast this with, say, the fact that in the USA alone over 23600 vehicle fires occur due to crashes each year.
It's also helpful to understand that the typical AC system contains about 200 to 300 GRAMS (that is, a very small amount) of refrigerant gas in a completely closed system. Contrast that with the litres and litres of fuel and lubricant running all around the engine bay. The gas cannot spontaneously combust - it needs air (and not just any amount of air, it will only burn when mixed with air between 2% and 10% gas/air mixture) AND it must be ignited by a spark or flame of sufficient energy (for example, a lit cigarette butt is insufficient). So it has to leak out at just the right rate to cause just the right mixture, and just at the right time there needs to be a sufficiently powerful ignition source present. And also keep in mind that when it burns, it 'flashes' (burns and dies out very quickly), unlike petrol or oil which just keeps on burning.
Then there's the environmental issues. It is actually possible to roughly estimate the amount of person-years lost due to global warming. I did some work on it based on IPCC and WHO data, and in the year 2000 alone approximately 770,000 years of life were lost due to death and disease as a result of climate change proportionate to the climate impact of these fluorocarbons in that year.
Welcome to the world of multinational corporation spin doctoring!
If you have any more questions, feel free to fire away. We've got a whole bunch of documentation in our files, with complete references to independent publications on safety etc. (if 15 years of safe real world use wasn't enough).
PS - Skyline AC systems love HyChill! Both my R32 GTST and my cousins R32 GTR get vent temps of around 6 degrees!! Remember though, that if you're AC isn't working now, there's obviously a problem... it may be as simple as a slow leak requiring just a regas, but often it's something more. If it is something more, no matter what gas you use you will never get good results until the root problem is fixed. It's such a basic point, but it's surprising how often people (and even AC techs) forget this.
PPS - Conversions of R-12 systems to R-134a are not only a bad idea because they are expensive, but also because they just don't perform well after conversion. R-134a is a poor cousin (in performance terms) to R-12. They only forced it down the industry's throat because R-12 had to go (because it is hugely ozone depleting) and they had such mindshare control over the industry at the time that no-one in top levels of government and industry even knew at about other alternatives at the time. Simply put, convert an R-12 system to R-134a and you'll get crappy vent temps (especially on hot days)... all that money for nothing.
A list of recommended workshops would be ace, preferably those with experience with japanese cars and their AC systems. I'm not in any hurry, so take your time n enjoy the festive season. Cheers for the quick response too.
PM me your email address and I'll get Ross (or Vic region mgr) to give you a list.
Alternatively, you can call head office on 1300 HYCHIL (1300 4924455) and ask for Ross and he'll hook you up with a list of the nearest workshops that will help you.
Also note that skyline AC systems are nothing particularly special. Virtually all AC systems in passenger cars are essentially the same from a service point of view (with the exception of CO2 systems, which are still very rare and may never be widespread).
One last thing... HyChill HR12 is now called HyChill Minus 30. We've been a bit slow in updating our website.
Take it easy!
John
Technical Advisor
HyChill
