Station traffic, CPZ parking and air con that barely gets used
Morden is a commuter town, and a lot of local cars do the same short trip every weekday: home to the station, or a run along Central Road for errands. Many households near the Northern line barely drive in the week at all because of the parking zones around the station, so the car sits and the air conditioning goes unused for weeks. That is worse for the system than it sounds. The refrigerant carries oil that keeps the compressor seals supple, and a system that is rarely run tends to lose its charge through dried-out seals.
When the summer arrives, those cars often go from reasonable cooling to almost none. A regas here is a sensible first step, but the key is doing it properly. We recover whatever refrigerant remains and weigh it, pull the system into a deep vacuum to boil off any moisture, and hold it there to check it is sealed. Only then do we recharge by weight, with the correct compressor oil for your car, and finish by checking the temperature at the centre vents with the engine running.
Cars from the Merton Park side and around St Lawrence Church tend to be well-kept family cars, and many are new enough to use R1234yf. That refrigerant costs more than R134a, which is one more reason not to pour it into a leaking system. If the vacuum test fails, you get a clear explanation and a written quote before anything else happens.
From Morden station, take Morden Hall Road to the roundabout and follow Morden Road east past Morden Hall Park into Mitcham, then Cranmer Road and Carshalton Road south to Hackbridge. It is around 12 minutes. If you commute by Tube and cannot drop the car off, collection and delivery can be arranged, and any repair that follows comes with our 3-month workmanship warranty.