Refrigerant fumes

[d2andru]

I have a 2006, automatic Vue. For the last week I have had a chemical smell inside the car. It also smells up the garage over night. I took it in to the dealer who could not find the source at first but then because I asked to have my car detailed, they put it up on a rack and found air conditioning fluid all over the under cariage. They could not find the leak but found that my air conditioning fluid was empty. They refilled it with fluid mixed with dye and sent me home with it over the weekend. It smells really bad again. My question is, how toxic are the fumes that I am breathing during the week end and during my hour long commute from and now back to work or the dealership? Is this poisoning me?

[grfnkl]

From what I know it's not DIRECTLY toxic on its own but I'm sure it's not good over a LONG period of time just like anything else. Pretty much if you feel sick or have a headache after being around the fumes then you are having sometype of reaction then you may want to drive with the windows open to reduce the amount that you inhale.

[denisond3]

When you mention the refrigerant fluid, you must mean that what they saw on the bottom of the car was the lubricant that was mixed with the refrigerant. The freon refrigerant wont stay a liquid longer than a fraction of a second - but the lubricant gets spewed out at the same time and will coat things.
The freon is harmless in the quantities that would be leaking from your vehicle. I believe the oil is also essentially harmless - but a real nuisance while it is burning off of the hot exhaust system parts.
If the Dept. of Transportation allowed us to use refrigerant that was NOT harmless, there would be fluids other than R-134a freon that would work well.