Receiver drier

The receiver drier or accumulator is an essential part of your car’s ac system. Its function is twofold: on one hand it has a filtering function to avoid dirt particles causing damage to the ac system as a whole. But mainly it has to remove and store excess liquid refrigerant and moisture from entering the rest of the air conditioning.

Liquid refrigerant mixing with moisture can easily corrode into acid which is highly damaging for most air conditioning parts including the compressor for example. Although having a similar function, it will depend on the kind of air conditioner you have whether you need an accumulator or a receiver drier. If you have an air conditioning system with a thermal expansion valve, it will have a receiver drier however if it has an orifice tube, it has an accumulator.