Not had any issues with Toyota or Subaru systems as such, only trouble has been by external damage to the pipes which can hardly be blamed on the maker and in that case the system fired straight up perfectly once repair was made.

12 year old Subaru working perfectly, might never have been regassed by the look of things, previous Subaru gave no bother either when sold at 16 years (though the heater iyself was nothing to write home about), 15 year old Landcruiser working perfectly but i have spotted a tiny seepage from a pipe underneath going to the rear aircon unit (its a dual system) so that will get fixed soon as i can find a decent chap for the job.

Going back a while but one Merc W124 estate we had came with the mother of all service histories, the aircon has been repaired twice in ten years both times well into 4 figure sums and was once again broken, haven't a clue how good or bad later cars might be.

Daughter's Honda Civic the compressor (i believe) packed up after some 9 years, as i recall that was a £500 job using an aftermarket unit.

Sons 2013 CRV again the compressor failed at year 4 or 5, not uncommon, thankfully under Honda aproved used warranty so repair costs of some £1400 were covered, a rear wheel bearing failed on the same car (approx 30k miles) @ about £400 cost.

edit, forgot, the family Aygo now 10 years and over 100k its still working fine.

Edited by gordonbennet on 04/08/2020 at 16:14

Aircon shouldn't just be used when it's hot, that's why they fail!

Aircon should be used all year round, takes the heat out in summer, the moisture out in winter and keeps the seals well lubricated.

Getting a stone through the condenser, causing a leak, is difficult to avoid or predict in advance which cars are less prone.

I don't know whether it's still the case but Toyotas used to have NipponDenso air conditioning (Denso is partly owned by Toyota) which is particularly good and cold. Denso makes a/c systems for much larger vehicles such as buses so they should know how to make it reliable.

Of the Japanese makes, I have known more than one with a Honda with compressor faults that have been troublesome and very expensive to put right so probably best avoid this make. A Skoda I had developed a fault with the system; it would still cool but not efficiently despite having it re gassed multiple times; having said that, it is likely that the VW group would source a/c from a variety of manufacturers.

My KIA aircon is ice cold but had to have a new condenser at nine years old as it had perished - not a stone chip but I think the road salt etc had taken its toll. It was easily fixed though with the regas cost over 100 pounds.

But as others have pointed out, on some systems if the a/c is not switched on regularly, the oil in the system will not circulate resulting in the seals etc perishing over time. I'm not sure this is still true as even when I have the a/c off at times I can still hear the refrigerant circulating in the system just after I turn the ignition off; unless I am confusing the noise with something else but it's quite a distinctive noise.

Edited by SLO76 on 05/08/2020 at 00:08