jimlongley wrote:And yes, the tech did it out of spite. I was in the dealership arguing with the service manager about the fact that it was not cooling very well (this was before I knew what they had done) and he had the tech who had worked on the vehicle take me out to show me that it was cooling down to spec temps. The tech reached under the dash with his turkey thermometer and shoved it hard up into the works. That evening my wife complained about something dripping on her feet. I took it back to the dealership the next day, by which time all of the refrigerant had leaked out and the compressor locked up. Eventually they replaced almost the entire ac system, but they never did pay my wife for the shoes that were ruined by the refrigerant leaking on them.
The vehicle was purchased from a dealership in Albany NY, and then I was transferred to IL. When I took it in for scheduled service, the local dealership wanted me to take it back to NY for service; I called Jeep and they confirmed that my plan was good anywhere. When the power steering went out, under warranty, they wanted me to take it back to NY for warranty repair; I called Jeep and they confirmed that warranty repair was anywhere. When I took it in due to the trailer towing harness fusing together (a memo or service notice, I don't remember, but it was internal and I only found out about the notice because the son of a co-worker worked at a different Jeep dealer and told me about it) they wanted me to take it back to NY; Et Cetera. And the AC thing was the final straw, because that time it was only in for a checkup before a trip, and we wound up without the vehicle for the trip. Lots more to the tale, but after that I started using a different dealership (of course many miles away due to Jeep's company rules about separation) instead of the one that was walking distance from my workplace.
I just HATE hearing stories like that. I was a Jeep Dealer for 25 years, and that's the kind of stuff that makes so many people mistrust all dealers. I'm sure that in Illinois it was a union shop, and in that case, even if the Dealer or General Mgr. was aware of it, there's very little they can do to discipline the employees that treated you that way. Management can't go back and speak directly to the technician or the service advisor...all they can do is talk to the union rep, and request that he look into it. I had a friend who was a dealer in Ohio, and his horror stories about dealing with the union made all of us from down here cringe. He couldn't even set the working hours for his own business without the approval of the union representative.
Your 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee should never have had R-12 in it...they all came with the R-134a system from the factory...the first domestic model to do so. Chrysler had built the all new "state of the art" Jefferson Avenue assembly plant in Detroit, just for the Grand Cherokee. That was the first year for the Grand Cherokee and that was a big deal...it garnered a lot of publicity because it would never have to be retrofitted like the other 1993 models.
JP171 is pretty much correct...my earlier post on this thread addressed how most laws and regulations get changed...to benefit someone or some group and allow them to make more money...period. There are still some misconceptions being put out here: first R-12 has NEVER been banned. You can still buy R-12...BUT it costs over10 times as much as R-134 (the current automotive refrigerant)...the regulations were changed to protect Dupont's cash cow, and to benefit some others in the automotive industry. By ensuring that the market for R-12 would be constantly diminishing over time, it discouraged other chemical companies from moving into the market when the R-12 patent expired, which is why it's so expensive today. What the regulation change actually did, was require all vehicle manufacturers to change over to R-134 on new vehicles by 1995, which ensured a new and constantly growing market for the R-12's patented replacement R-134 . Most started changing over earlier...the Jeep Grand Cherokee was the first model to already have the new R-134 system in place when it was introduced in 1993. The new regulations also required all dealers and repair facilities to purchase all new equipment to service the new systems as well as requiring them to buy "recovery stations" so that neither R-12 or R-134 was released into the atmosphere when the systems were worked on, which was a big benefit to all the equipment manufacturers because the government regulations forced the dealers to buy their products (hmmm sounds like a preview of obamacare...lol). The idea that these new "recovery stations" would save the ozone layer sounded like a noble sentiment, but they failed to consider that all the "Freon" had already been released into the atmosphere BEFORE the people bring it in to be repaired. They bring it in because it's NOT COOLING...and it's not cooling because all the Freon has leaked out...either through a hole in the evaporator core, or the compressor seal, or one of the hoses or fittings. No one drives up and says they'd like to have their Freon changed. Here endeth the lesson. 
Exactly...if we had a true free market, you put the products out there and the market will dictate which ones survive, rather than government regulations...which are generally written to favor one product or manufacturer over the others in the market. It's called LOBBYING...and it's purpose is to legislate advantages. An uncle who was in the legislature for years explained it this way: "there's never been a bill written, or amended that wasn't going to make someone a bunch of money. We don't sit around dreaming up legislation...it's brought to us by "interested parties", via lobbyists... then we ( actually his staff) have to study it and try to figure out exactly what changing a few words in the existing bill is designed to accomplish...and then whether or not we think it will be better or worse for our constituents...assuming that you're not just taking the "campaign contribution" and the other "benefits" and just giving them the vote regardless." With very few exceptions, I've rarely seen his analysis proved incorrect.