Product Review: Sunoco AC Effecter

It is such a relief to enter a vehicle knowing that the A/C could easily cool the cabin on a hot summer day. That is often the case for brand-new vehicles. But as cars get older, have you noticed how the A/C system becomes less effective in cooling and loses its peak performance?

When that happens, we would usually go to a friendly neighborhood A/C shop that performs cleaning services. However, there’s also a part that often gets overlooked – the A/C compressor. For that, Sunoco gave us their AC Effecter to test, which is said to renew the A/C compressor’s performance and restore its cooling efficiency.

In this product review, I put my daily driver to the test – a 2013 Toyota Yaris. With the car being a little over 10 years old, the hatchback hasn’t had its A/C serviced yet since I’ve owned it.

The Sunoco AC Effecter is effectively a solution that adds lubrication to the mechanical parts of your a/C system such as the compressor. The product sent to us is applicable for vehicles with R134a refrigerants – very common in modern non-hybrid vehicles. It’s packaged in a 50mL bottle with a Polyalkylene Glycol (PAG) refrigerant oil that goes directly into the tubes where your car’s freon flows.

The process for charging the AC Effecter to the system is fairly straightforward, so there’s no need for special tools. The product itself comes with an airtight charging hose that fits right into the low-pressure charging cap of your car’s A/C system. In most applications, it’s the cap that has an L written at the top of it. For my Yaris with a 1NZ-FE engine similar to the Vios, the charging cap was located near the top left portion of the engine.

You just have to open that one up while the car is on idle with your A/C system at its max setting. We plugged in the charging hose to the low-pressure charging cap with the AC Effecter bottle in an upside-down position. In as fast as 30 seconds, the Sunoco AC Effecter was charged directly to the Yaris’ A/C system.

It did not take too long for me to notice an effect on how my car’s A/C system works with the AC Effecter. In this generation of the Yaris and the Vios, it’s very common to have a noisy A/C compressor, especially with the ticking sound of the compressor clutch engaging. But after charging the AC Effecter, the compressor was noticeably quieter during operation, giving an indication that the mechanical parts inside the compressor are indeed better lubricated with the additive.

The noise reduction has also translated to smoother idling. When the compressor clutch engages, the idle rpm doesn’t drop that much compared to before. That means there’s less load being put to the engine when the A/C operates. I was able to validate this when I started to drive the Yaris around and noticed that the car has an easier time accelerating even with the A/C on full blast.

Furthermore, the water temperature indicates that the engine gets less stressed when the A/C operates. The temperature stays between the 88 to 90 degree Celsius range, unlike before when it reaches 93 or 94. This matters a lot, especially for low displacement, low horsepower cars where the effect of the engine power robbed by the compressor is more profound.

In terms of cooling, the Yaris still seems to be more or less at the same level of “coolness” as it was before, but the A/C system appears to have an easier time keeping the cabin cool since the interval for the compressor to engage then disengage is shorter. In the long run, that should translate to better fuel efficiency as well.

Overall, the Sunoco AC Effecter gave the Yaris the benefit of placing a lesser load on the engine while improving the cooling efficiency of the A/C compressor. Truth be told, it’s not going to turn your cabin to Arctic levels of coldness, but it helps in making your A/C system more effective and efficient when it comes to staying cool. If that’s what you want out of your vehicle, then the Sunoco AC Effecter is worth trying.

Sunoco AC Effecter retails for Php2,500 and is presently available at Autolane Auto Services and Coolmate Makati.

For inquiries about Sunoco AC Effecter, you may contact them at 09985206089.