Hey skoda nerds (affectionate)

I'm looking to see if someone could recommend a way to diagnose the a/c leak I have on the early 1.6 petrol. I was going to take it to a garage today for a diagnosis but they were short staffed and had to postpone. In talking to a guy at the reception, he then said they would only be able to confirm there is a leak but not where from, so not very helpful. I rang around and the UV die test is around £150, very expensive if you ask me just for diagnosis. Funny enough just last week I replaced the condenser on my honda CRV as i could see there was a leak from one of the pipes, it was a very visible mist around the O ring. I got lucky with that one, I paid £150 for a new condenser and a regas, I've done the fitting myself.

Is there a way to workout where is it leaking from the a/c system? I tried the same visual method but I can't for sure say where it could leak from. The condenser seems in bad shape from all the bugs it hit in 20 years. Cheers, B.

I can't think of a good easy way to find any or all the leak sites on a fridge system, yes if you are lucky you will find "damp" area(s) where the system oil has escaped along with some gas charge.

After that it will be up to using a pumped sniffer and/or an acoustic sensor, then adding in some dye and pressure of Nitrogen.

The system pressure sensors have always tended to end up leaking - or at least many do - and then there is the evaporator - having a leak in there would a bit annoying to sort out.