HFO-1234yf - New Automotive Air Conditioning Refrigerant

[Onyx_Z32]

So to the engineers and HVAC guys here, what’s your opinion? Is it “safe?” I’ve been reading up on it and opinions are varied.

Cliffs: The EU (and maybe the US?) government is mandating car makers give up HFC-134a for this new HFO-1234yf for environmental reasons.

@GM

‘We’re cool with it, going in 2013 models.’

@Ford

‘Eh, we’ll stick with the old stuff in the US and use the new stuff if we have to in Europe.’

@VW

‘Well we know the old stuff is safe so we’d like to stick with that’

@Mercedes

‘Hell no. That shit blows up!’

“When engineers at Mercedes-Benz tasked with field-testing a revolutionary new refrigerant watched it ignite in a ball of fire before their eyes, it took a while for the significance of their discovery to sink in.

Simulating a leak in the air-conditioning line of a Mercedes B-Class tourer, they had released a fine mixture of refrigerant and A/C compressor oil, which sprayed across the car’s turbo-charged 1.6 litre engine.

The substance caught fire as soon as it hit the hot surface, releasing a toxic, corrosive gas as it burned. The car’s windshield turned milky white as lethal hydrogen fluoride began eating its way into the glass.

“We were frozen in shock, I am not going to deny it. We needed a day to comprehend what we had just seen,” said Stefan Geyer, a senior Daimler engineer who ran the tests.”

There are a million articles on this stuff: HFO-1234yf - Google Search

---------- Post added at 11:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:02 AM ----------

BMW looks like they’re with Mercedes:

@BMW

“We do not want to say the test results are wrong, but we are not convinced the methods applied are sufficient to achieve a definitive conclusion that guarantees our high safety standards,”

http://www.racplus.com/news/bmw-pulls-out-of-car-research-programme-over-refrigerant-dispute-update/8642415.article