A car air conditioner system is the biggest respite to every car owner driving in the summer heat. When the blazing sun is on your head, and you are escaping the sweaty days, nothing is sweeter than the chilly, air blast from the A/C. However, no matter how much we hail the cold air, it needs repair, maintenance, and care to continue providing high-quality service. Moreover, no ice-machine or a grumpy goblin is fanning you on the summery afternoons, but a very intricate and carefully curated aircon system that works through a compressor, condenser, evaporator, and many others. If you have ever wondered how car air conditioning works, your answer lies below.

How does the Car Air Conditioner work?
As mentioned, the working of the air conditioner is a complicated one, but nothing so difficult that you cannot make sense.
The air conditioner system has five major components:
- Compressor
- Condenser
- Receiver Dryer or Accumulator
- Expansion Valve/Orifice Tube
- Evaporator
- If you have questions like how does a compressor work in a car or what is an A/c condenser used for a car, this car air conditioner guide will solve everything.
- The entire process starts with the refrigerant – the famous car air conditioning gas. Once you crank up the air conditioner system, the refrigerant travels to the condenser. Here, the fresh air from the atmosphere also passes through the car air condenser, allowing the gas to experience a drop in temperature and turn liquid. The process works on changes in pressure, resulting in a change in the temperature.
- The resultant liquid then goes through the receiver dryer which removes the contaminants, impurities and any moisture. From thereon, the liquid travels to the thermal expansion valve where the flow changes as per the temperature control adjusted by you, causing it to lose pressure and temperature. By this time, the refrigerant has turned into a gas again and passes through the evaporator coils.
- The liquid is then turned into a vapour as it passes through the evaporator coils, which subsequently gets blown into the cabin as cool air.
- Now that you have a brief overview of how a car air conditioner works, it is time to look at the individual components of the air cooling system in the engine.
Car Air Conditioner Service
- Now that you have a fair idea about how an air conditioner works and its many different components, let’s talk about servicing and maintenance. Car air conditioning repair is extremely essential, especially if you don’t want the blast of hot, humid air in your face during summers.
- The most obvious sign of taking your car to a service centre to get the air-con repaired is when you feel it is not cooling enough. I mean, that’s the job of the air-conditioner, right?
- After getting it to the service centre, you can either just get it recharged or go for the full service.
- To ensure everything is working fine with the air-con system, the condenser is inspected and checked. Next, the air-conditioner pipes and pollen filter are inspected. In the end, all the replacement work is carried on with a decontaminating session.
- This was all about the car’s air conditioner system. Hope you found this informative and interesting. For more such articles, keep watching this space.