Rotational spectra of the van der Waals complex of pentafluoroethane-argon and its two C-13 isotopes in nature abundance have been investigated by puled jet Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy. The Ar atom lies in the symmetry plane of pentafluoroethane, with a distance of 4.05 angstrom from its center of mass. The dissociation energy has been estimated to be 3.2 kJ/mol with a pseudodiatomic approximation. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.