Back Story: (Skip to questions if you don't care)
A couple weeks back I turned my AC on and it was blowing nothing but hot air. I took it over to Mazda because there was a guy there I actually trusted. Key word: Was. I didn't know he quit. The new guy said it was my condenser leaking because he saw liquid. He did no other tests but then told me it needed to be replaced. I then found out the guy I trusted was gone and then decided to not trust the new guy.


I then tried putting in the UV stuff to see this alleged leak, to which I found no obvious leak. I went under my dash looking to see if it was dumping into the passenger area and still nothing.


Really long story short I took it to Sears to take a looky-loo at my AC. They found that when you charge the AC the needle shakes and they also added UV refrigerant into the system and found that all the UV stuff was coming out of the drain of the evap core. The AC will blow cold when first recharged but then quickly goes back to hot.


According to the tech I am going to need a new compressor, evap core, AC Expansion valve and while they didn't mention it I know if this were the case I would need to replace the condenser/Drier.


Questions:
Is $1000 a decent amount for labor if I decide to go through Sears? I'd be purchasing the parts myself because OEM is damn expensive.


Has anyone here had this issue?


If so and you've replaced your evap core, did yours have pipes connected directly to it, or not? Rock Auto has ones with the piping welded directly to the evap and everyone else shows without that. I presume it will be the one without the piping but want to make sure. I just sent a condenser back to them because it didn't have the proper receiver/drier attached and now I am concerned about getting more wrong ****.


If I decide to do this myself do I REALLY need a second person to remove the dash? Is it because of weight or because it could break from being flimsy?


I know a lot of people suggest that if I haven't worked on an AC before that I should just have a HVAC tech do it, and while I do agree with to a point, a thousand dollars is a thousand dollars. And besides how is one to learn if they are unwilling to **** everything up to do so.


Thank you all kindly.

 

idk that much about a/c systems but i have a condenser f/s if ya need one

 

I also don't know much about A/C systems, but it sounds like you'd be replacing almost the entire system. What's the reasoning behind that you were given? It sounds like they found the issue but they have no idea what would cause it and are just choosing to replace everything.

 

I'll think about it, but I will probably just get a new one. I think they have warranties. They also should come pressurized and sealed to prevent anything from getting inside.

The reason is because as per Sears I have a leak in my evaporator core and due to that leak I have lost some of my PAG oil. The loss of oil in the system has caused the compressor to start to fail and when it starts to fail it likely puts metal shavings in the system which clogs the condenser. It's one of those crappy scenarios where you lose one thing and it causes a cascading failure.