New compressor, empty wallet

[Nimrodthewombat]

Well, I finally bit the bullet and asked my mechanic to go ahead and replace the A/C compressor on my '93 500SEL. He knows that I'm just a middle school German teacher with idiotically stupid expensive tastes that I can't afford and he's being very kind to me and is only charging me $1000 to put in a new compressor, receiver dryer and fill it up with freon. No, I'm not being sarcastic, he really is being kind-the dealer wanted more than twice that much!

It was leaking from the front of the compressor (detected with flourescent dye) , never cooled well in the 3 years I've owned it and has had the peculiar symptom of cycling off and refusing to come on again unless the belt had STP belt dressing sprayed on it. I had the belt and tensioner replaced last summer and it helped for about 2 weeks, then the symptoms came back. The evaporator had been replaced right before I bought it so we know it's not that. The only codes that came up were, defroster vent flap (and the defroster works fine) and something about a switchover valve.

Sigh, thanks for letting me vent, if the "hitting head against the wall" animation was available I'd enter about 30 of them...........


again, sigh-

[fabbrisd1]

Thanks God it is not a evapaorator problem again.

I feel your pain, the labor is quite a bear, and the compressor runs about $450 for a good reman and $585 OE new from the West Coast (free shipping) A/C Compressor and AC Compressor from Discount AC Parts

The drier and expansive valve about $55-$65 each.

The good news, with good work and good parts you should be chilling soon !

[Brett San Diego]

So did it never leak enough that you could notice the pressure drop from loss of refridgerant? Or did it never lose all of the refridgerant?

Just wondering why it was never tested for a leak until now.

Brett

[Nimrodthewombat]

It leaked, but never a whole lot. The main problem was the compressor shutting off and then not coming back on. It is my understanding that the compressor has a sensor that compares engine speed to compressor speed and if the two don't match it shuts off the compressor. They worked SO WELL that Mercedes-Benz deleted the sensor on following years because there were so many problems with it. Alas, it can't be deleted or bypassed on mine. And to make matters worse for those of you that think the Japanese can do no wrong when it comes to manufacturing it's made by NIPPONDENSO! My understanding is that older Benzes had a GM compressor that very rarely failed and if they did they were very cheap and easy to replace........When the compressor failed on my old 300SD (actually a brick hit it and destroyed it!) The bill was under $500....


again.......sigh