The tail end of May in the UK this year involved what, by our standards, was a heat wave. And yet again, I climbed into my car on a hot day and found the air conditioning not working.

Regular readers will have heard this rant before, and really, I ought to be finding a specialist who can actually find and fix the leak, not just fill it up again for over £100 and hope I’ll be far enough away in time and space before it all leaks out.

However, being a busy man, I decided to take a punt on a self top up kit:

Air conditioning top up can

The instructions were easy to follow (but do read them carefully as the valve is the opposite of what you might think) and to my surprise and delight, the vents started blowing cold again and the system has held for a week now. Not bad for less than half the price a garage charges, and I still have a half full can for next time.