Wynn’s to Market Auto Air-Conditioner Converters : Innovation: Prompted by an impending Freon ban, the Orange company will offer ‘ozone-friendly’ retrofitting kits. It is apparently the first firm aside from car makers to announce such a line.

Wynn’s International Inc. may become the first automotive-products company to market “ozone-friendly” air-conditioner converters.

The company said Thursday that its Ft. Worth subsidiary, Wynn’s Climate Systems Inc., will introduce kits to retrofit soon-to-be-antiquated automobile air conditioners.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is phasing out the production of Freon, the brand name for a refrigerant found to deplete the Earth’s protective ozone layer. By December, 1995, the sale of Freon--generically referred to as R-12--will be banned altogether.

Expected to be available through auto dealers and independent repair shops later this year, the conversion kits will allow air conditioners originally made for Freon to run on R-134a, an environmentally sound refrigerant.

Wynn’s is apparently the first company aside from auto makers to announce a line of retrofitting kits, industry watchers said. Some car manufacturers have begun to produce converters, and most are moving toward installing updated air systems in new automobile models.

“A number of other automotive-products companies have discussed doing this, but Wynn’s is definitely an early entrant in the marketplace,” said David Liebowitz, an analyst with American Securities Corp. in New York.

Gregg Gibbons, a vice president with Wynn’s, said that the kits will include hoses, seals and other replacement parts. R-134a has smaller molecules than its forerunners, so the gas would escape through hoses intended for Freon, he explained.

The kits will range in price and complexity, Gibbons said, “depending on how much someone is willing to pay to make the transition.” Simpler kits will not provide the same degree of cooling power, he said.

Kits must be tailored for specific makes and years of automobiles, Gibbons said.

“By our calculations, there are 3,800 different possibilities,” he said. “Obviously, we can’t make a kit for everybody. We’re still deciding which cars to focus on.”

The company also has yet to determine price tags for the kits, Gibbons said.

Dale Jewett, an editor at the Detroit-based trade weekly Automotive News, said that the “industry estimate” of the cost for converting air conditioners is $200 to $800, including labor.

The impending Freon ban does not require car owners to convert their air conditioners. But once Freon is no longer sold, many consumers will have little choice, given air-conditioner hoses’ propensity for developing leaks.

“People won’t be able just to go to their local mechanic and dump more Freon in their air conditioners,” Jewett said.

Already, Freon is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive, he noted: “A few years ago it cost about $3 a pound, and today it costs up to $20 a pound.”

R-134a runs about $20 a pound as well, but that price should fall as the refrigerant becomes more widely used. Most car air-conditioners need about three pounds of coolant.

“Companies that quickly establish themselves in the conversion market should see substantial rewards,” auto industry analyst Liebowitz said.

Wynn’s, based in Orange, had 1992 revenue of $291.8 million. The company makes a wide range of products for automobiles, including air conditioners, seals, and oil and gas additives.

In Thursday’s trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the company’s stock closed at $27 a share, down 75 cents.