Interdynamics MAC-134 EZ Chill Refrigerant Refill with Charging Hose and Gauge
Hello ladies and gentlemen and good evening! Today on RefrigerantHQ we will be doing another product review. Today’s product of choice is Interdynamics MAC-134 A/C recharge kit. Now these types of products I am sure most of you have dealt with in the past. They can be a lifesaver in a pinch and give you a nice cold breeze in the dead of summer. But, how does the Interdynamics EZ Chill compare against the other products out there? What makes it stand out? Is it worth buying or should you move to a different product. Let’s find out!
Before I get into what a product does and doesn’t offer I always like to spend a little bit of time looking at the company behind the product. I feel that a look, even if it’s a brief one, helps the consumer and myself understand what goes into the product. In this case the Interdynamics MAC-134 EZ Chill is from the company called rechargeac.com.
This company is then owned by IDQ Incorporated out of Garland, Texas. The IDQ company has been in business for over forty years and through out all of those years they have been dedicated to providing do-it-yourself air conditioning products for the weekend warrior mechanic as well as the seasoned service technician. In fact I would feel comfortable saying that they have a VERY large market share when it comes to DIY air conditioning recharge kits. These guys know what they are doing.
Know Before You Buy
A lot of you may already know this but I would be amiss if I didn’t mention it. Before we get onto the Pros and Cons I want to point out that these AC recharge kits are not a miracle worker. Heck, most of the time they aren’t even a fix. What these recharge kits do is take a problem that you have with your car’s air conditioning system and push the problem on down the road.
Your AC system rather it be on a car, house, or freezer all work relatively the same way. The refrigerant goes through an endless cycle moving back and forth between gas and liquid and liquid to gas. The system is completely sealed and no refrigerant should be coming out of it. So, in a perfect world you should never run out of refrigerant. But, as we all know the world isn’t perfect and things break, hoses crack, o-rings crumble, and so on and so on. When this happens your refrigerant begins to leak out. The more refrigerant that leaks out the less potent your air conditioner will be in the dead of summer.
Now what these recharge kits do is pump your system full of refrigerant again. So, you have a leak where your refrigerant escaped out of and if you use a recharge kit you are just dumping more refrigerant into your system. Depending on your leak this could be a good thing or a bad thing. If you have a tiny crack in one of your A/C hoses that barely leaks then an AC recharge kit will be perfect for you. You could recharge it in March and have it last the whole season because the leak is so small. But, if you have a very large leak, or worse, a major part failure then these recharge kits will not work for you. You could recharge your car today, have it blow cold air, and then come back a few days later and all of your refrigerant is gone again. Not a good deal.
So, the point I’m trying to make here is just know that these recharge kits aren’t a miracle worker. Yes, they’ll work in some cases, but not all. Alright, on to the review!
Pros
Sure you could go out to an auto parts store and buy a couple of cans of refrigerant and recharge your car yourself but when you do this you have to realize that when you are buying those R-134a cans you are ONLY buying cans of straight refrigerant. Have you thought about the PAG oil that needs replaced? What about a leak sealer or any other additives? With the Interdynamics EZ Chill you get your refrigerant along with everything else including the PAG oil, the additives, and yes even a leak sealer built right into the formula.
The best part about it? This EZ Chill model is one of the cheaper ones on the market so you would only be paying a bit more then you would for a few cans of R-134a. Along with all of that your Interdynamics EZChill comes with an easy to attach coupler and a pressure gauge so that you can monitor your levels as you recharge your system.
If you get one thing from this review it’s this: The MAC-134 EZ Chill is all about making things easy. It’s the easy button so they say. Everything that would need to be done to add refrigerant to your system is in that one little can. On top of that the product comes with a hose and with a pressure gauge so you can see exactly how much refrigerant you have when you start, when charging, and when you finish. The coupler at the end of the hose attaches right to the low side port just by pushing it on. Don’t worry though if you have the wrong port as this coupler will ONLY fit the low side port and nowhere else. This prevents very costly mistakes by using the wrong port.
The last Pro that I am going to mention here is that the R-134a that comes with this product is compatible with all other types of R-134a. What that means is that you do not have to worry about mixing refrigerants together. Say, for example, you have a pound of refrigerant left in your car and you need to recharge it. You do NOT have to purge all of the old refrigerant before recharging. Like I said before, easy button.
Cons
Alright folks, onto the cons. The biggest con is something that I’ve already mentioned. Any recharge kit, I don’t care what brand, are temporary fixes and that is if they work. If you have a massive leak or a faulty compressor then these recharge kits aren’t going to do you any good. I still like to buy them though as a kind of pre-cursor before taking my car into the shop. If the recharge kit doesn’t work no big deal. You are out thirty dollars and you take your car to the shop. However, if the recharge kit does work then you just saved yourself a whole mess of money by not taking your car to the mechanic.
While the EZ Chill is one of the cheaper recharge kits on the market it does come with another cost. The cost savings can be seen in the quality of the product. There are numerous reports of triggers breaking, the can breaking and venting refrigerant, the gauge not working correctly, etc. While these reports are the exception I still feel that as a reviewer that I should mention them. Now, some of these may be due to faulty products or it may be due to improper shipping. It’s hard to say what the cause is but either way some of the products are arriving damaged to the customer and that is no good.
The last con that I will mention here is that the amount of refrigerant in this Interdynamics EZ Chill model is smaller when compared to the A/C Pro ACP-100 model. It’s not a big deal as the EZ Chill has eighteen ounces while the ACP-100 recharge has twenty ounces and the ACP-100 is more expensive so take that as you will.
Conclusion
The Interdynamics MAC-134 R-134a recharge kit is a great investment if you find yourself with a car blowing hot air. This holds especially true if you think that you are going to have to go to a mechanic. I highly suggest you try this product first before committing any expenses to a shop repair. The thing to remember is that these recharge kits are a patch. They are a band-aid. They do not fix the real problem of why your system is leaking refrigerant but they do offer a great and cheap solution to get your car blowing cold air again. I would highly recommend buying this product if your car’s AC is no longer blowing cold. The worst that could happen is that you find out you have a part failure or a large leak and your car starts blowing hot again in a few days. The BEST that could happen is that this recharge kit could charge your car for the entire summer season and you avoid all of the expense of going through a shop diagnosis and repair.
If you are interested in purchasing the Interdynamics MAC-134 please click here to be taken to our Amazon.com partner. Or, you can also find this product in most retailers and auto parts stores. Also, if you are unsure on how to use this product then I highly recommend our ‘How To’ guide on AC recharge kits.