R134A Refrigerant....
 

For any of you with A/C problems, expect to pay more for refrigerant this year. Last year my shop was paying about $90 for a 30lb cylinder, I paid $289 yesterday for the same thing. Something about China buying the chemical make-up for some manufacturing or something like that...sounds like a scam to me.....

You got butt raped, no lube. I can still get R-12...shhh

How do you figure?? I run a shop, all the parts places have raised their prices. R12?? BFD, I got 6 30 lb cylinders of it here, and can get plenty more. R12 is still readily available. Is your R12 in a 30 lb cylinder?? What did you pay for it??

R134a will continue to rise in price this year, you can bet on it.

ok, are you talking about R12 prices or R134 prices? R12 is expensive, but why are you buying 6 30 Lb cylinders of it? It would be more cost effective for people today to retrofit to R134A. No shops around here that I know of even purchase it, it is useless. repairs on R12 system gets too expensive, and when people realize that for less then $100 they can retrofit to R134A, they usually do that.

But unless your customers want to waist there money, then buying it isnt a problem.

Now with R134A, I havent seen any rise in price. My work charges customers about $10 to fill there car up with it when they have a leak, and the stores still sell it pretty cheap. Maybe it is cause you are in cali.

Last year we were paying about $80 for 30 lbs of R134a, just paid $249 for a cylinder of it. We bought all of the R12 because we bought it cheap, and a lot of people are not interested in the retro fit, because R12 still cools much better. I read some article about Dupont selling the chemical make-up of R134a to a Chinese company for some other use, thus leaving us with a shortage.