July/August 2019

JULY/AUGUST 2019 AFTERMARKET 23 www.aftermarketonline.net Honeywell is urging garages to make sure they don’t source illegal refrigerants when dealing with air con systems this summer. “Air conditioning is by far the most popular at-cost optional extra for UK car owners and drivers, “said Lee Hermitage, Marketing Director, Honeywell Fluorine Products Europe, Middle East and Africa. “It is not only a comfort perk – it is more often considered a safety feature, too. And rightfully so, since air conditioning can prevent drowsiness and help keep drivers alert. That all is good news for UK garages, because the more air conditioning units are in cars on British roads, the more maintenance they will require.For air conditioning to work, the system has to use a refrigerant and these refrigerants are subject to some pretty tough environmental requirements policed by the Environment Agency to limit emissions from air conditioning units in cars.” Since January 2017, all new vehicles must be equipped with a low global-warming-potential refrigerant. In most cases this is R-1234yf. However, older vehicles are still equipped with R-134a. Lee continued: “The first step when servicing car’s air conditioning system, is therefore to understand which refrigerant it contains, since it is illegal to service R-1234yf systems with R- 134a.” It is also essential to check if the product has been legitimately placed on the market: “Counterfeiting or smuggling are not words usually used when talking about refrigeration,” said Lee. “However, they became a reality of the industry lately. In the European Union, illegal products are estimated to make up 20% of the refrigeration market and create 20 million MT of CO 2 a year – equivalent to the emissions of four million cars. According to the Environmental Investigation Agency’s study, 72% of users have been offered refrigerant in non-returnable containers, a clear sign of the refrigerant being illegal. “With illegal products, users do not know what refrigerant really is in the container. Such unknown mixtures can represent a health hazard for technicians working with these refrigerants. An illegal product can also impact the performance of the air-conditioning system, ranging from increasing the fuel consumption to damaging the air-conditioning compressor. There are consequences: “Being found to be in possession of these illegal products may mean fines are imposed and it may result in custodial sentences. While there is a lot of risk associated with illegal refrigerants, there are steps a business can take to make sure they never use these products.” Illegal Refrigerants: Why risk it? DENSO's e-Videns vehicle inspection tool has been enhanced with vehicle reset functionality. The solution now features options for service interval resets and diagnostic trouble code resets. Gerard Magielsen, DENSO Senior Engineer, commented: “DENSO's e- Videns solution can now perform a service interval reset (SIR) and a diagnostic trouble code reset (DTCR). The SIR can be manual or automatic, depending on the make and model of the vehicle and includes service time and mileage, oil time and mileage, brake and MOT. Diagnostic trouble code reset functionality enables technicians to quickly and easily reset the check engine light, with e-Videns rescanning all vehicle systems to confirm the codes have been reset. Available when the reset license is activated and e-Videns inspection results are saved, a vehicle reset stores all relevant servicing information in the cloud, printing data in both customer and repairer reports. A reset is required on most vehicles following maintenance work. “DENSO first released e-Videns last year, providing the aftermarket with an end-to-end vehicle health check tool, integrating driver interview, system scanning, health check and a comprehensive vehicle inspection. The tool scans all available vehicle systems for error codes and monitors live engine data under various operating conditions. This information is then compared with reference data within the DENSO cloud to help technicians identify abnormalities and pre-empt potential issues.“ Gerard added: “The ability for e- Videns to trigger a service interval reset and a diagnostic trouble code reset not only gives independent technicians access to technology based on OE products, but will also help them boost efficiency when working with all types of vehicle.” Further details are available via www.denso-am.co.uk DENSO adds reset to e-Videns