An Air Con Offering You Cannot Refuse

Around 90% of your customers have air-conditioning fitted to their cars, therefore you already have an exist-ing customer base for your air con business’ explains GEMCO’s. If you cannot repair their air conditioning they may go elsewhere and potentially you could lose all their business. But if you kit yourself out for this business then you can look after your existing and potentially attract new customers.

The modern air-conditioning machine is an environmental recycling centre,’ says Andy. ‘It removes refriger-ant from the car and separates oil. It also cleans, dries and and stores the refrigerant for re-use. Most are fully automatic taking between five and 10 minutes of your technician’s labour for each re-charge. If you in-vest, approximately £3,000 – £3500 in an air-con machine, some oils, leak dyes, nitrogen leak test kit and technician training you could expect to get payback in 12 months with only 6 jobs per month. This is based on a £50 re-charge fee minus the costs for oil, dye, refrigerant and labour. The estimated gross margin is 80%.

Air con servicing tips from GEMCO

Leak Testing

Adding ultra-violet dye to every vehicle you re-charge will help you identify leaks faster. If the vehicle in your workshop has no refrigerant in the system, identified by zero pressure on the gauges of the machine then you should pressurise the system with Oxygen Free Nitrogen (OFN) and investigate the leak with your ultra violet lamp.

Low refrigerant

The most common fault in the automotive air-conditioning field is caused by low refrigerant and a straight forward re-charge is required. All vehicles with AC fitted lose between 10- 15% of their refrigerant per year, so every two years the system will not work efficiently due to lack of refrigerant. Potentially 50% of your cus-tomer’s cars will need maintenance every year. This does not include any additional work due to component failure.

Air con: The Law

All technicians working with refrigerant gases must have an F gas certificate gained by attending an ap-proved training course and passing the end of course examination. (IMI or City & Guilds)

All cars and light commercial vehicles from before 2012 use refrigerant R134a. Vehicles built after 2012 use refrigerant R1234yf. After 2017 all Cars & Light Commercial vehicles must use R1234yf. Agricultural vehi-cles, truck cab or any plant and equipment can continue to use R134a.

You will need a R134a machine for all existing cars and all existing models built this year, plus for all cars homologated after 2012 a new R1234yf machine. Some dual gas machines are available which can work with either system but you should decide if two separate machines would be a better buy for you. A dual gas machine can only work with one car at a time, whereas two separate machines could offer you more flexibil-ity being able to work 2 cars at a time.

GEMCO’s Bradbury range of air conditioning machines include the following models:

BACP202 – Fully automatic unit suitable for R134a refrigerant gas
BACP222YF – Fully automatic unit suitable for R1234YF refrigerant gas


In addition to the Bradbury range GEMCO have also recently added the BrainBee brand to their product portfolio. The two top products within this range are the Clima 6000 and AirNex. See below full details.

Clima 6000 stations & AirNex:

1) a HPV (high precision vacuum) pump to create and hold a fast vacuum for servicing and leak finding
2) patented system to 100% recharge car AC systems faster then any other machine - in all conditions and temperatures
3) most come with ‘Eco Lock’ patented hose couplers that prevent gas loss during connection to the car - good for the environment and your pocket too - as can save up to £1 in gas every time
3) fully automatic operation

AirNex:

1) The next generation of AC service stations - designed to work with today’s cars and evolve to work with future vehicles...
2) 7” colour touch screen to view and input options + big analog gauges to show everything you need to see
3) station updates and engineer interaction can be done remotely via WiFi for maximum efficiency
4) professional A4 job reports can be WiFi printed, emailed to your office PC or the customers inbox
5) mid level & above units can have optional communication with the car AC system via an EOBD interface, also remote viewer app for smart phone including iOS