This Toyota AC Problem is Affecting Many Models!

So cars are complicated, and they're getting complicated by the day. But there's one feature in cars that's always been complicated, and in Toyota land and Lexus land, they are causing the biggest problems. Problems that sometimes it's like, let's move on from this car type deal. AC lines. Usually AC repair, the worst AC repair you can have is an evaporator going up. To keep things simple, let me explain. AC system. You have a compressor, you have lines going to a radiator in the front called a condenser, you have lines going to another radiator behind the dash called an evaporator. There's an expansive valve, and things are simple. Usually the worst leak in an AC is the evaporator, because you have to pull the whole dash to replace it. But that's actually not the case. Replacing an evaporator on any Toyota or Lexus, except this one, is simple. Very simple. But replacing rear AC lines on some Toyotas? Disaster. And some of them totaling the car disaster. To best explain how that works, look at this GX. Look at this Lexus GX. Nice 2004 Lexus GX. It doesn't really have a lot of miles, just over 100,000. It does have rust, and that's typical in our area, but it's not like the frame is rotten or anything. Car is actually in decent shape. No AC. Shall we lift it up and look why there is no AC, and why this car may never have AC again? Because it's just simply not worth fixing? Let's take a look. So here's the problem. We talked about the AC, by the way, here's the condenser. Condenser is right here, and the compressor is right here. Come around here, that's the compressor right there. Evaporator inside the car, and there's lines in between them. Now, this car does have a small line that is leaking at the top. Initially, I was hoping that's the only leak that it has, but no. Because this is a bigger car, the unit in the front is not sufficient to fully cool this entire car, so they have another unit in the back. Basically, you have two refrigerant lines, one of them going, one of them coming back, for another evaporator in the back, and another fan in the back, to have two units, basically. They do share the same compressor, they do share the same condenser, but a separate evaporator for additional cooling. Here's the problem with this car, the rear lines are leaking. Here's how that looks like. See these two lines right here? You can actually start to see them from here, all the way up here, these two lines, and then they wrap around here, and this is where they're leaking, and they're leaking pretty bad. Look at that, they're literally dripping oil. All of this here, and then all the way at the top, this line just basically blew out. Now, some of you, at this point, if you are familiar with cars, you work on cars, you say, well, the only thing that's leaking is the o-ring, and that is partially correct, because these are two lines, this is a connection point. Let me move this shield out of the way, so you can see it. This is a connection point, this is a line, and then the other side is another line, and then these two lines, they clip into each other, and there is an o-ring that keeps the seal, and then there is a nut that just holds it. That nut and stud is the worst idea ever, because what ends up happening is, you have an aluminum line, and that stud or bolt that holds them together is steel. The similar metals, chemical reaction, salt on top of it doesn't help. They do one of two things, they swell, because oxidation starts forming at a rapid pace on this aluminum on the inside, and they swell, and now the o-ring gets pushed, or the opening opens in a strange shape, and they start leaking. That's one case. Okay, we'll replace the o-ring, clean it up, and we're good. How are you going to do that? Because these lines basically weld themselves together. It's not the lines themselves, it's the stud or the bolt holding them, welds itself there, and by the time you get that out, and you're trying to fight this line to get it out, you have mangled this line so much that it renders it unusable, because these are flimsy aluminum lines, they're not meant to be, you know, manhandled like that to get them out. So, okay, well, we have to replace the lines. Now, the costs are already starting to go significantly higher, because this line, if you notice, this is not the worst one. It wraps right on top of the frame, right here, and then it goes all the way up under the hood, so a little bit, and you're not talking about, you know, we're routing a wire that's pliable. This is a solid line, and they're flimsy. They're not really meant to be bent multiple times, so you got to handle them with care. But here's where the problem is. Okay, so we replace the section going to the front. This is actually not terrible, but then we have the next problem. The section goes to the back. Let's follow it. It goes right here, and then think if you come from this way, you can see it better. See them? The line's right here. They go in the back. Actually, there is a small leak here as well. Then, this is where the problems start. This. You see how close proximity it is between the frame and the body? And then this is when things go really bad. The tuck's under here, and now it's on top of the muffler, and then you look here. Where does it come out? You have to look all the way up here. You'll see the lines. They're right there, and then they completely go over the frame, and then they come out here. Look, you can barely see. They're going to go right on top of the frame, and just for good measure, okay, well, we can just feed these lines through the opening, and we're good. No, no, no, because if you look at the end here, they make this giant curve and go inside the car. I'm just going to say something. They did not think about this at all when they designed this car. Basically, in order to replace these lines properly, you have to pull the body off the frame, meaning this is a body-on-frame truck. This is the actual frame of the car. The body is just mounted. You see it right here. This is one of the bolts that are mounting bolts. This is one here. There's one here, one in the front, one in the back. That's on this side as well. This is what mounts the body onto the frame. You have to split the two to get these lines, because at the factory, they installed these lines before there was a car. It was just a shell. Great design, because here's the problem. Okay, well, it's a difficult job. We can do it. Here's the problem. In order to replace this line, we have to pull the body off the frame. Well, this just happens to be a 22-year-old car with rust. Can you imagine the amount of things that are going to break? You're telling me all these rusty brake line connections that go from the frame to the body, these aren't going to survive? No. Now, we are replacing brake lines as well. What about the fuel lines? Same thing, not going to survive. What about the exhaust? Exhaust, you could leave it, but another way to do this is you have to pull the exhaust down. Now, you're disturbing coolant hoses. You are basically disassembling the entire car, and you're going to replace so many things in the way. For the sake of these AC lines, because we have to pull the body off the frame, you're almost like, why couldn't they design this better? Here's where things get a lot worse. This is a GX470. They're notorious for this line right here to leak, and some of them complete blowout to a point where it'll start spilling coolant, spilling refrigerant everywhere. You know where they leak? This is the fun part. Come behind me, I'll show you. They decided in their wonderful design, this here is aluminum. This here, do you see that clamp at the back right here? This one? That's a steel clamp with a rubber like kind of in between the clamp and the thing. Well, that rubber deteriorates over time, and now you have that metal clamp, which is steel, sitting right on the aluminum. And what's going to happen when you give it five, ten years? It's going to start to oxidize, and eventually that flimsy little line breaks and starts leaking from vibration. Vibration is already oxidized there. It breaks. Thank you very much for that. Why can't we put plastic? For the first time, I'm going to say, plastic would have been okay, but no, we had to put the metal one. So this line is actually not leaking from the joint. It's actually leaking from, you see how the clamp is wet as well? I hope you can see it. If you really look close, the clamp is wet. That means it's leaking from there as well. Rear AC in cars is the biggest disaster. So what does the customer of this car do? They have no AC. Here are the options if you run into this, and I'm going to tell you some other models that are a lot more alarming than this, to be honest. The owner of this car has two options. Take a second mortgage on their house, and we pull the body off the frame and see what else is going to break on this car, and we have to fix a lot. And we have to replace these entire lines, all of them all the way in the back, only to do the same thing in 10 years time. Or, not something we do at our shop, but they sell kits that disable the rear AC. Look, folks. These kits work, but you will not have sufficient cooling for this car. You live in Arizona. Temperature gets to 100 degrees. You park this car outside. You start the AC. It's going to take hours for this car to cool down. It's just simply too big, and this single unit is not going to be able to keep up. Whoever sits in the back will always be hot. So it's a compromise. It's not a perfect solution. But if you're just one person driving this car, and you're okay with the compromise, it's something. I don't do that at the shop, because I don't like modifying, and now we're experimenting and doing all this. We don't do that here, but it's a possibility. It's kind of a last measure. You know what? What was wrong with running these lines right here? Somewhere better, along the frame on the outside, where if they do leak, and they are going to leak, there's no way around it, at least they are serviceable. They never thought of service. Oh, and it gets so much worse when we start talking about other models. Let's talk about the other models. So the most popular ones, 2004 all the way to 2009 Sienna. On these Siennas, on the passenger side, the rear wheel, on the wheel well, if you take that cover, that's where the lines enter. Notorious to leak there, and they do the same thing. 50-50 chance they're going to come out, you can replace an o-ring, or replacing the whole lines, and the unit, the line going inside the car, and then they have a connection point right in the middle of the van, love to leak there. So wait, this is an old generation Sienna, so the next generation, 2011 all the way to 2020, they fixed that, right? No, exact same spots. Actually, if anything, the 2011 to 2020 generation Sienna leaks worse. In the middle of the van, there's a connection point, they love to leak. Almost every single one has a little leak, depending how big the leak is. And then they also leak in the back, same place, passenger side rear wheel, if you take that big cover, you'll see the lines. But in addition to that, here's something, another thing that's common with both of these models, the Siennas, coolant lines, because there is heater also in the back, coolant lines, hoses love to leak as well, for the same reason. You have aluminum lines for the coolant, not steel. Why not? Then we get to the big one. Folks, this one is just a disaster. 200 Series Land Cruiser. 200 Series Land Cruiser is already very complicated. And same thing with the LX570. It's already a pretty complicated car, pretty busy frame, you have AHC, especially on the LX, it's a pretty busy frame. AC lines. It literally looks like when they designed the car, they took the frame and they wrapped the AC lines around it in a way where, how do we make this where it can never be replaced normally? There is absolutely no way to do the 200 Series or the LX570 without pulling the body for a frame. Unless you're going to just zip tie the line on the outside to the car and hold it when you drive. There's no other way to do it. There's literally no way to get to the line. And guess where they leak? Do they leak here where it's like, oh, maybe we can save the, no. They leak right where, it's actually on this side for the LX, but it's similar to this. Do you see where the AC lines here enter the body, enter the inside? That's where the LX570 leaks. And you know what? Some folks will say, well, maybe it's a 2008. These are a little bit older. We just had a 2021 LX570 with 57,000 miles. This line is literally dripping refrigerant oil on the floor. No AC. Car has 57,000 miles and it's not the first one. We see this a lot with the LX570s. Why? Terrible design. Would it have hurt us to put a cover here so all the things from the road would not be blasting at this line all the time, salt and everything? You know, when we do car reviews, I always say, please put covers here. It's usually for the rear AC lines, because that's what's going to happen. So LX570 line crews, 200 series line crews, they're owners. Be on the lookout for that because for some reason, like on the Siennas, it's a 50-50 chance. Sometimes the lines will separate and we're able to replace an o-ring, clean it up. But on the LX570, 8 out of 10 don't want to separate. So it's a much lower chance that we're going to be able to save it. Then we go into the older line cruiser, 100 series line cruiser. Notorious. There is a line on the 100 series line cruiser. Somewhere in this area, it has one of those metal clamps. It leaks right there. Skinny line. Look, that one is a nightmare to replace. I mean, a legit, proper nightmare to replace. You can do it without lifting the body of the frame, but it is a nightmare. And you get to a point where it's like, it's almost like easier from this agony to just lift the body of the frame. Then the newest one, this is one that is just recently starting, 2020 to 2023, or actually you can say 2026, still making it, but I haven't really seen beyond 23, maybe because they're too new. Highlander. The Highlander, the new Highlander with the new refrigerator, they have same thing, rear AC lines. The AC lines go in the car, literally right here, which is, at least I will say the truth, it's a better spot than these. Right on top of the spare tire. If you lower a spare tire, you see them right there. And if pull the trim underneath, inside the car, you'll see the line go in right there. So it's a better spot. We're starting to see them leak a lot, but because these are newer cars, we're getting lucky where they separate. Separate, could replace the O-rings. We haven't seen one come back after that. So there's that, heads up on that. Now the older Highlander, basically since they started 08 with the rear AC lines, same thing. Middle of the car, line, that line is pretty complicated to replace on the Highlander because you have to drop the exhaust, but this is a terrible design. Look, we have to have a rear AC in these cars. It's simply too big. You can't just expect the one unit to cool down this entire behemoth, but the line location. Now, any logical person will ask one question. Why don't we just run these lines inside the car? That would make total sense. Here's the problem with that. First, high pressure lines inside the car, not a great idea. Now some will say, well, we already have the evaporator, but the evaporator is not running across the entire car. It's just localized in one area of the car at the very front. If you have lines running inside all across and you have a leak, that's just going to literally fumigate the entire car. Now the evaporator can do the same, but not when you have a line in the car. That's one thing. The other thing is cost. Apparently, having a line go inside the car and having to insulate that opening in the whole nine yard, that is a costly thing. Apparently, that's why you see all AC lines on cars when they enter in the back, they enter straight up, not at an angle. Because at an angle, you have to fully insulate it. This, the least insulation, because whatever water makes it through it, like splash, it'll just drain right back. So there is that. However, couldn't we maybe instead of it entering here, maybe it enters the car right here, goes all the way to the rear unit, and we just run the lines right here. Make a break point right here, run it on top, this is going to be the tough spot, and then up. They say it's easier for production. Yes. But if we give it a little bit of thought, this is basically the customer, the owner of this car is basically, we're stuck. We've got no more AC. And when a 100 Series Line Cruiser decides to, AC is gone, you either are bypassing, now you have half the AC of the car working, or you're fighting with that rear, or possibly pulling the body off the frame at a monumental cost. We had a gentleman recently, very, very dear friend and a good customer of ours here, LX570, 57,000 miles. AC went out, recharged it. If you recharged it somewhere else, would die. Went out again, brought it here. We look, literally dripping out of the back. You know how much the quote to replace all these lines were? I told him, look, I'm going to quote you the whole line from front to back, because even though the others are not leaking, if we're going to pull the body off the frame, let's replace all of them and not be back for another one in the future. And he agreed with that. You know how much the cost for that is? It's over $5,000 when a car has 57,000 miles and it is hardly five years old. And then the Highlanders that we're seeing a lot of leaking, a better solution. Toyota, if you're watching, likely not, but if you're watching, better solutions, because this is a disaster, flat out. And the new Sienna, I've only seen one leaking in the back, but I have a feeling it's going to be business as usual, unfortunately. And with the new refrigerator being so expensive, I mean, you can't, you know, the old saying of, oh, I'll charge it every year, if it lasts a few months and we'll keep charging it, that's not going to fly with the new expensive refrigerant. So I really dislike these rear lines, but sometimes if you need a big car, you have a big family, you got no choice, but heads up, because this is like, I don't know what to tell this customer. I'm like, we can try this, but I see the line leaking. And now we have to, even if I try, okay, well, we can trace this line and see, I got to drop the exhaust. And now we drop the exhaust, what's going to break? And if the exhaust itself can sustain when it has rust like this car, not significant, but it does have the 22-year-old car, that's a problem. Folks, I sincerely hope if you have a car with the rear AC, you don't have issues. And it never leaks, never has issues. I share with you some of the examples, but this is a just terrible design, you could say, but it's a necessary one because you need the double AC. But I really hope your car never leaks, because when it does, and you're faced with a giant bill because of some aluminum tin pipes, it's just, it's not a good day. Let's put it this way. And I hope it never happens to nobody. But unfortunately, we see it all the time here. Folks, I hope this video is helpful and informative. I hope you learned something new. If you like it, consider giving it a thumbs up. If you're not a subscriber, consider subscribing to the channel, check out some of my other videos. Until the next video, folks, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and you have yourself a wonderful day.