Refrigerant leak in your Explorer?

I have a late model model Ford Explorer (1998) and the air conditioner is not cooling very well. I had the freon recharged and that helped for a while. However slowly, it began to not cool very well again. What could the problem be?

Thanks for the great question.

The first thing to do is check for a refrigerant leak in the air conditioning system. It sounds like your air conditioner is leaking refrigerant. Any easy way to do this is by using a Robinair refrigerant leak detector. This device will "sniff" out a freon leak if there is one. Also, since you have a 1997 Ford Explorer, I would check the blanket that is wrapped around your accumulator. On those models, moisture gets trapped in there and causes rust to build up on the steel accumulator. Ford eventually corrected this problem on later models. You may also "sniff" around it with your Robinair refrigerant leak detector and see if it leaking there.