To protect the environment, the R1234yf refrigerant was introduced into the air conditioning systems of modern vehicles. Its price is much higher than that of previous refrigerants, and the gas is slightly flammable, making the prompt detection and repair of even small leaks even more critical. This research aimed to develop a simple, dashboard-based method for serially monitoring and visualizing anomalies in cars after production and before and shortly after delivery. It is possible to infer the presence of minor leaks through online or frequent pressure monitoring after the system has been “resting” (last ignition off for at least 5 h to allow system stabilization: air conditioner vs. outer or engine coolant temperature). Using this method, it can be determined whether the given pressure losses fall within the normal operating range. The essence of the technique is to detect a possible small amount of leakage by monitoring the pressure change (Δp) of the air conditioning system, supported by dashboard(s). The results on the test fleet with 500 cars show that the procedure can be suitable for detecting defects that cause micro-leaks immediately after production. The false-negative detection rate was 0.2, and the false-positive rate was 1.2 at a threshold of ±0.5 bar. Based on a practical example, the method can also be applied to offline cars until the first factory-related claim occurs.
Nagy et al. (2026) studied this question.