I went down to east l.a. today to get my air conditioning recharged. I have the r12 screw fittings still it's never been retrofitted yet.The guy asked me if i wanted to retrofit to the 134R or did i want the R12. I thought it must be a scam, but what the hell. He had a car already hooked up to the machine. I thought i had to wait till he was done but this machine had one side that said 134r witch was hooked up to the the other car with the snap on fittings. The other side said R12 with the screw fittings my truck takes. So he hooks up the R12 side to my system then goes to the back room and comes out with what looked like a 3 or 5 gallon propane bottle and hooks it up. Then he said i will make this blow cold. Paid the guy turned the air on and split, in a couple of minutes i was blowing ice cubes.For the extra $20.00 i wonder what i got? Can he recharge the system with the old fittings for R12 AND FILL IT WITH 134R ? This took about twenty minutes. Watching it done on youtube to evacuate the old freon and recharge with the 134R looked like it took a lot longer to complete a retrofit and recharge.:secret::secret:

sounds like he may have just added a bit????
a evac and recharge takes way longer than 20 mins
hope it stays cold for ya:beer:

I saw a label on the container said maxi-frig it's compatible with R12 systems. My system hasn't blew cold air in five years.So it's not R12 it's MX-12A MAXI-FRIG. Saw it on google. It took longer than 20 min. it was hooked up with the car off for some time then about 20 min. running with the air on.

I saw a label on the container said maxi-frig it's compatible with R12 systems. My system hasn't blew cold air in five years.So it's not R12 it's MX-12A MAXI-FRIG. Saw it on google. It took longer than 20 min. it was hooked up with the car off for some time then about 20 min. running with the air on.

Sounds like he pulled a quick vacuum on the system and charged it with a Hydrocarbon R12 replacement.
Talk about a hot button issue!
I won't take one side or another in the 15+ year old debate except to say that the price of R12 has dropped considerably over the years and it's what the system was designed for. That fact alone has rendered R12 alternates to basically a "non issue" status.

The shop didn't find the leak that originally rendered the system inoperative, nor did they replace the ~30 year old accumulator which is surely moisture saturated from being open to atmosphere for a length of time.
They sure didn't do you any favors, regardless of the price..

Thanks for the input. I will let you know how it turns out.:nanawrench: