Alright...

Alright... My A/C just took a crap on me today. So I went by a mechanic to see what the problem was. (It made a bit of a squeel and the a/c light started flashing and it started blowing hot air) He told me my compressor seized up and I had no pressure when he put it on the diagnostic machine. Told me it was a $2000 fix. Is this something I can fix myself, or should I save my pennies and have him do it? That seems high to me, but what do i know. Maybe I should look around and try to find a better price. Any advice would be great! Thanks!

 

A $2,000 dollar fix?

You can buy a new compressor for $200-300. You might need a new condenser or evap coil if the compressor spit out metal particles. Another couple of hundred bucks. An evacuate / recharge is probably going to cost about $150 or so. The rest of that $2000 is pure labor, and pure robbery.

The only unknown is the compressor's failure mode. My wife had a 1985 buick century that had a compressor crash and burn, and it spit out quite a bit of metal trash. Took a couple of hours to flush out each component (backward) to eliminate all the parts of the compressor. But most fail without spewing metal into the system. My approach would be to remove the compressor and the high-side line going to the condenser. Spray some sort of reasonable liquid through that high-side line and cover the other end with a clean cloth (most parts places have cans of A/C flush that is made for this purpose). Check to see if there is any metal particles captured by the cloth. If not, you might well be lucky and a compressor + evacuate and recharge will see you done. If you DIY you can buy gauges and a decent vacuum pump at Harbor Freight for about $150 total, then 2 cans of R132 for under $10 each, leaving you with just the compressor to buy (I would go to advanced, auto zone, etc and compare prices). If you take it to a shop, you are going to pay significantly more (retail pricing) for the compressor, plus the labor. You can DIY for maybe $400 depending on what flushing the pressure line shows. A shop will likely be closer to $800-$1000. A dealership might approach that $2000 figure.

 

Yea, he told me just labor alone would be $1200+. He said the book said it should take 7 hours to fix. So do the math. $150/hr? Ridiculous! Anyway... I'm probably gonna try and do it myself, I've never tackled an a/c before. I really don't know what I'm getting myself into. I'm pretty mechanically inclined, but I have gotten myself into more than I can handle. You made it sound relatively easy and somewhat inexpensive. Is it as easy as you made it sound? Or are you a trained mechanic and have done this job a hundred times

 

Put down the wrenches, and step away from the vehicle.

 

^^ this

 

Lol. I'd comparison shop other mechanics before you jump in.

 

Don't be a foampile

Take it to a competent mechanic - one that you trust to charge a fair price.

 

Sounds like you guys are speaking from experience. Lol!

 

If you want some entertainment, search foampile on TW. He is (was?) a member who went gung ho DIY on some jobs he shouldn't have. Then search Krazie Sj and you'll laugh your balls off!

 

I had my Honda compressor replaced a month ago for $7 and change - my daughter's Jeep was $9 by another mechanic. I'd shop around if I were you.

 

The compressor replacement looks like an hour's job. Evacuation and re-charge is maybe 90 minutes with 60 minutes of that sitting around doing nothing while waiting to confirm the vacuum doesn't go away due to a leak somewhere.

If you buy a pump and gauges, I will happily walk you through the compressor replacement, and the evacuation / recharge process. The only sticky issue is to flush the high pressure line to see if you see ANY bits of metal. Any metal means more work but flushing is not that hard. Except that you can't flush some parts depending on how they are made. The evap and condenser are the usual components that don't back-flush very well.

Or you can try a couple of other shops first. Certainly $2,000 is WAY out of line. Now if he was talking about replacing EVERYTHING I would buy that because the evap core is a bear to remove.

 

Egh... I'm gonna look around for a more reasonable mechanic. He did say that the $2000 was to replace everything. He also said it could be just the compressor but he couldn't tell until he took it off and checked it. That was $800. He said it was a gamble to do that.

 

Yeah I was quoted 7 hours labor just to replace the evaporator core. I replaced my compressor, expansion valve, and condenser, and flushed all my lines myself. Total cost around $350. Chances are your evaporator core is fine and doesn't need to be replaced.

 

There is a very fine strainer inside of the line going to the expansion valve at the evaporator core. It should be removed and cleaned at least.