Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and we're talking cars. How you doing, Bernie?
Bernie: I’m doing very well.
Mark: So today's guest is a 2017 Chevy Suburban. What was happening with this vehicle?
Bernie: So the air conditioning wasn't working in the vehicle. So the owner brought the vehicle to us to diagnose which we did, found there was no refrigerant in the system. We charged it, partial charge of refrigerant, added some UV dye to the system. So the system is now operating, it wasn't before.
An interesting issue happened right after that. She took the vehicle and we said, Hey, drive it for a couple of days. Bring it back. We'll see if the leak is apparent with the UV dye in the system. Came back the next day, said, you know what? The radiator fan's running at a really high speed, making a lot of noise and for some reason there's a fault with the cooling system that we found. Not really part of the podcast, but interesting flaw where the engine actually wasn't warming up. So as soon as the air conditioning came on it caused the radiator fan to run at high speed, and it's kind of annoying.
So anyway, so she brought the vehicle back and we actually found the AC leak right after that, which was really apparent. We can go into some pictures.
Mark: All right, let's have a look at our guest. 2017 Suburban. Nice looking vehicle.
Bernie: Very nice looking vehicle. I have to make some comments on, to me, this is one of the last years of what I think of the good Suburbans because it has a solid rear axle and some decent ground clearance. Whereas the newest versions, they've gone to an independent rear suspension. And if you look at the vehicle from the back, the suspension sits so low. I mean, I used to own a Suburban, it was a great vehicle because you could take it off road and go over the place. These are really more like a truck Lowrider, truck station wagon now. They're really not a useful utility vehicle like they once were. But this is kinda like the last vintage of that. Just a little opinion piece there.
Mark: There's the victim, I guess the problem?
Bernie: Yeah, so this is the old AC hose. You can see the yellow stain of the UV dye. That's how bad the leak was. It showed up. And this was after basically a day of, of driving. So right at that hose fitting there there was a leak. If you look to the left, you can also see a bunch of UV dye. That kind of happened when we filled the system, some of the dye spilled out. We have a special injector to put the dye into the system. So anyways, that was definitely the cause of the leak. And this hose assembly needed to be replaced?
Mark: Up close. It looks like this.
Bernie: Yeah, up close. It looks like that.
Mark: And this was the repair.
Bernie: So this replacement hose is actually one piece. So instead of two pieces of hose, you actually get a one piece unit. And at first we thought, oh, we've got the wrong hose. But upon doing a little further research and just confirming with the parts supplier, yes. This is in fact the hose. It's been redesigned. And what's interesting about this hose is that the high side, that's the skinnier diameter hose, that's a high pressure side. That hose actually wraps around the low pressure side. It's like a beautiful piece of manufacturing. It's like aluminum welded, beautiful construction.
Mark: And they did that instead of making two pieces like they did here?
Bernie: Yeah. Why would they have made it so complicated? And the reason why I believe is that the low pressure side generally runs cold. And so I believe that the idea is to actually cool the high pressure side down. It must be some sort of engineering idea behind that to make that hose so complicated.
Mark: It seems like there's a lot more hose there.
Bernie: It does, but it's actually the same amount of hose at the end of the day. It just looks odd and different.
Mark: I mean, in terms of length, even just in comparison.
Bernie: Yeah. So that was the other issue. So these hoses, the one with the arrow, that bolts onto the compressor and it was very taut when it was all put together, there was a lot of tension on that hose, and I believe that's why it failed. I think just bad design. That hose probably should have been an inch longer, or even two, but at least an inch longer. It was under a lot of stress when it was installed in the vehicle, so probably over the years of use, it just tugged on it and caused that fitting to fail. The newer hose had a lot more curve to it and it fit much better.
So after some cooling system repairs, we put a new thermostat in. That helped the fan issue. Put a new thermostat in and of course fix the AC system. It's all working good.
Mark: Another happy customer.
Bernie: Another happy customer.
Mark: Suburbans, how are these, this vintage? Do you see very much of these vehicles yet?
Bernie: We see a few. Yeah. They're good vehicles. They're real good and reliable. Yep.
Mark: I know you're a Suburban fan.
Bernie: Yeah. I'd like to own one, but they use a lot of fuel, so unless you're hauling a lot of stuff around, it was good when I had my four kids. It's good hauling four kids around and. You can stick some plywood and lumber in the back if you want, kinda useful. But I think Suburbans have really gone, they've really gone kind of fancy and I dunno how useful they are nowadays, whether you can even fold them down and put all that stuff in them. But they certainly make a nice people hauler vehicle.
Mark: There you go. If you're looking for some service for your GM product, the people to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment right there. They'll get back to you. They'll find out what's going on. They'll get ready for your appointment. Or you can call them at (604) 327-7112 in Vancouver. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark.
