w463 air con system

Sorry bit of a thread hijack, I thought that the south east asians had solved the issue with after market air-cons back in the eighties without the use of large units strapped to your roof! When I was living in Hong Kong before A/C was a regular manufacturer installation, I remember seeing in every taxi you sat in, blower units bolted to the underside of dashboards obviously with a compressor in the engine bay. I don't understand why it's such a difficult and costly operation now if there were obviously off the shelf units available then? I've never seen anything like it over here but neither have I found anything on the net, which I find odd. 

The a/c was an expensive option on the early 463s. The 300GE tended to had it, but alot don't. Possibly rare is not correct.

Any decent a/c service centre will be able to fix it

You do not have to go to a Mercedes dealer to have air conditioning sorted out. Find an air conditioning specialist in your locality and they could sort you out. If your system is not working, most likely due to a low refrigerant charge. Your specialist will firstly check for any leaks in your system and rectify that before going further. Spider IV has touched on a very valid point, what gas was in the system before leaking out. You can have the gas converted but I am not up-to-date on that, some say they can change the gas without any working on seals and rubber being done but I have contrary information and have not looked into this in earnest, so I do not know. I would suggest asking around from a few different specialist to see what the consensus is.

You may be advised to renew the moisture remover/dyer this can reduce the efficiency of air conditioning cooling. Think of it as an oil filter, when it get clogged lubrication is effected.

A good air conditioner specialist may need to add some refrigerant oil to keep the system to allow for lubrication to occur. 

After your work has been done, do use your air conditioning 10 mins to 15 mins each month to help circulate this oil around in the system which helps keep the oil seals supple and maintain sealing integrity and keep the air conditioning running for longer. None of this re-charging malarkey every year. My system has lasted over six years and I have not charged up my system yet, it works fine. Note: air conditioning has its uses in winter too. Whilst blowing hot air during winter do use the air conditioner as dehumidifiers in the system keep the window from steaming up, the dry windows keep them clean in that way, none of the hand screen cleaning worsening screen vision as a result.

I would suggest perhaps every year to have the air conditioning cleaned out with anti- bacterials, your specialist may ask from you if you want this done. Have this done in particular if you carry little kiddies sneezing in winter.

wow ok cheers guys ill get onto this now