Mechanics like to beat on engineers whenever their designs make it hard to work on. Sometimes it’s not their fault, but other times it just doesn’t make sense why things are the way they are. Whoever designed the air conditioning system in 5th generation Chrysler Town & Country minivans must not have known that the air conditioning needs servicing occasionally.

One of the service ports on the system is located underneath the air filter box. I’ve seen some cars where you actually have to remove the entire air filter box just to get to the fitting, but luckily on this one I was able to slip it in, but it was tight.

So why was I working on the A/C? It had a leak in the lines that go to the system for the rear of the van. You can’t replace only the one line that’s leaking, you need to replace both A/C lines and both heater lines at the same time, as they all come as one piece. And then it’s time to figure out how to route eight feet of rigid pipe around exhaust, suspension, and brake lines.

It seems nobody expected the rear A/C lines to go bad, because to get them out you have to remove the right rear shock absorber mount. I’ve seen plenty of rear A/C lines go bad, on multiple brands. If I was buying a minivan, I would get one without separate rear A/C just to avoid these problems.

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-Dan