Repair Price Shock and Searching For The Deal

You brought your car in for diagnosis and just got the repair estimate from the dealer. After you regained consciousness and the heart palpitations stopped you decided to do a little research and see if you could get a better deal. But how and where?

Well a deal is only a deal if you do in fact need the service. I'll relate a true story to make the point.

First let me state that we were never in the actual repair business and that our expertise has been in rebuilding compressors and fabricating custom components and systems, so when Shelton, one of the truckers who regularly picked up outbound freight at our warehouse asked me to look at his car I was a bit reluctant but agreed to do so only as a friend who would diagnose his problem and then send him back to his repair facility. I told him to bring the car by on Saturday when I would be supervising a crew working overtime to push out a large order of rebuilt compressors.

Saturday came and Shelton showed up with his relatively new Nissan Maxima at 9:00 AM as planned. He also brought a $1685.00, computer generated, detailed diagnosis and repair estimate from the Nissan Dealer for which he paid about $100.00 Of course, that fee would be deducted from the repair bill should he opt to have the dealer do the work.

I studied the estimate for a minute or two and saw he was being told he needed a new AC compressor, a new receiver drier, an evaporator and an expansion valve. Of course common sense kicked in and I thought "Why not just replace everything in the car. Then the AC will surely work." But, I said nothing. I went inside and got my manifold gauge set so I could see what was going on in the system. For those of you who do not know, there is absolutely no way you can effectively diagnose an AC system without high and low side gauge readings. For more on this subject, read this brief article:

INTERPRETATION OF GAUGE READINGS

But I digress ..... We allowed the car to cool down while we had a cup of coffee and chatted local politics and then I connected the gauges. Hmmmmm .... equalized pressure 125 psig (engine off and cool, ambient temperature about 70 degrees) .....original complaint....."AC not blowing cold".

"Shelton, do you mind if I tinker with this a bit?"

"No, please do."

"OK, sit in the car while I connect another machine to it.....start the engine.... turn on the AC and put your hand in front of the vents."

"Getting cold yet?"

"A little"

"OK"

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"Now?"

"Yeah! .... Wow, it's freezing. What did you do?".....

I did nothing more than remove a little bit of freon. The system was over charged. More is not always better, especially when charging an AC system. Once the optimal charge is reached there is a diminishing return on any added gas until it becomes so over charged the system simply won't work. For a brief tutorial on how to charge a system read this article:

CHARGING

So what really happened here?

Shelton brought his relatively new car into the dealer. A dealer trained technician with minimal real world experience diagnosed the car. After connecting it to a diagnostic computer which most probably told him the problem could be one or all of several things, he opted to err on the side of caution. Rather than under estimate the job, which we all know will infuriate the customer and backfire on the technician, he opted to "fix" all of it and insure a good out come.

Was this an attempt to scam or defraud Shelton? I doubt it. People with bad intentions rarely put their misdeeds on paper where it can come back to haunt them.

So what was my point here? I guess it is to emphasize that things are not always as they seem. Before you run out and purchase parts be certain your problem is correctly diagnosed. I cannot even venture to guess at how many "bad" compressors have been changed for want of a blown fuse.

We routinely get people who want to buy components and when asked why they need the part the answer we get is "Because it doesn't blow cold."

But that is fodder for another day.

-Joe

Information Is Power

As I state in my BIO, our purpose here is to arm you with the necessary information to either service your own automotive AC system or procure the services of a *QUALIFIED* ac technician.

First, you must realize that because your mechanic is a brilliant engine or transmission technician does not mean he is qualified or knowledgeable in the repair of an air conditioning system. Human nature being what it is, we like to think we can do it all and while he may sincerely believe he can perform your repair with the excellence he uses on everything else, it behooves you to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of how these repairs need to be done.

AND SO ....

I will bestow on you the magic words that will help insure a good repair.

A high quality repair must always result in A CLEAN, LEAK FREE SYSTEM

No matter what is wrong with your AC system, you must ultimately drive away with one that is both clean and leak free or you will be repeating the repair and possibly paying twice for it.

Moving parts (your compressor) create friction which in turn create wear (read dirt and residue). This is normal. When the dirt becomes excessive it wreaks all sorts of havoc within the system because it acts as an abrasive (creates more dirt) and causes obstructions within the system.

The solution is to chemically flush the system. For a detailed explanation read these two articles:


FLUSHING

BLACK DEATH

After reading this you might ask, "So why leak free?"

The answer is refrigerant oil must be "miscible" (a term in chemistry that refers to the property of liquids to mix in all proportions, forming a homogeneous solution) with the freon and travel with it. Ergo, when you lose freon you also lose oil, and we all know what that causes.....More friction and more wear of course. Intuitively you must realize that simply adding freon without oil accelerates the demise of your system and adding oil with the freon over time will lead to a situation where you have no idea how much oil is in the system, which will also cause problems.