part of what John Gladu (jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu) wrote:

>I'm also looking at R406a - http://worldserver.com/ghg/ - (this is a
>FANTASTIC site, with pros and cons clearly stated).
>I went here mostly because I noticed that it was developed by George Gob[le]
>at Purdue (who I respect, based on previous visits to his homepage -
>http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu ) . I never realized that he'd developed a couple
>of alternative refrigerants. R406a and its brother R414a both use the
>existing system (except for new fittings) and are compatible with the old
>mineral oil lubricant. So what's the drawback? They can go right through
>some hoses (require nonpermeable hoses), and, according to one of the sites
>I visited, the permeable hoses are quite common on foreign vehicles. They
>are also not campatible with Buna-N seals in the compressor (they make a
>replacement kit that uses Neoprene seals) and we'd have to check with VW
>whether the hoses and seals are "good" or "bad" for using these
>refrigerants. Otherwise, they claim to have equal or better cooling
>characteristics to good ol' Freon (R12).

George Goble posts to the newsgroups <rec.autos.tech> and
<sci.engr.heat-vent-ac>; search DejaNews
(http://www.dejanews.com/forms/dnsetfilter.html) for author
ghg@worldserver.com to read what he has recently posted on this
subject - the articles are to long for me to quote them here.  Also
check out these URL's which have bulletin board forums:

http://www.aircondition.com
http://www.maxcool.com
-- 
b h k