Air Con Compressor broke

[tikw2124]

Took car in for an Air Con leak check and re-gas as no cold air. After 10 mins the service manager came back with some bad news. Apparently the compressor has blown up (his words) which would mean metal bits would have entered the whole system, so advised the following: Replace compressor, condenser, expansion valve and all pipework, however, he did say i may get away with just cleaning the pipes out. Total cost £1,900, i nearly dropped. Does this seem reasonable and do the condenser and expansion vale have to be replaced in addition to the compressor? Any ideas, thoughts, advice would be most welcome .

Keith

 

[Dieselman]

If the compressor has shredded itself then there could be filings everywhere up to the TX valve.

 

[BlackC55]

Get him to show you evidence of the filings at all of the above components.

If filings are there then ££££

 

[Andy W]

Sounds like another rip off by the get rich brigade who know bugger all about air con.

 

[tikw2124]

After getting over shock of the MB quote of £1900, i took car to a local 'known' reputable garage which stated only the compressor need be replaced and the systems can be flushed out and have quoted £611 (£375 for compressor) with 12 months or 12000 miles warranty. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Tomandjo2]

Take it to another garage that does Air-con re-charging and don't tell them findings to see if they find anything wrong at all. It's VERY unusual for aircon systems to fail like that.
Even if all oil leaked out they should still run for a considerable time.

Tom

 

[tikw2124]

Hi Tom, MB did confirm the compressor had shredded itself, so i would like to think this was true! However, my concern was the advice to replace virtually the complete system. I believe there is a filter between the comp and the condenser to catch any debris, so not sure why they advised this?

 

[tikw2124]

Just got the compressor replaced at the original estimation - £611, 12000 mile warranty, they got temp down to 1DEG @ oat of 25 DEG and 8DEG @ oat of 30 DEG. Nice to have it back, just need the summer to appreciate it!!!