I just took in my 2003 mitsubishi eclipes with 61000 miles, into a local repair shop, and i was told that there is metal in the system, so the A/C comppressor, expansion valve and A/C condensor needs to be replaced, so parts and labor are $ 1954.00…has anyone heard of this (metal being in the system)
Yes, that can be true IF the air compressor is wiped out. Seeing as how 61k miles on an '03 is a bit young for this kind of problem, exactly what are the A/C symptoms?
If the compressor is that bad then it should have been, or is, making some racket.
how did they come to this conclusion?
more info needed.
please feed us the facts,and what led up to this ?
noise?
how long?
warm air?
ect,ect,ect
thanks
Thats the thing it is making a racket at all, it is as quiet as it has always been. The symptoms are: It was blowing warm air not cool, no I thought it might only need to be re-charged, the place I took it inot said it would not hold a charge and there seemed to be no leaks, so I took it into another shop, they kept the car to take a look at it, then told me this make and model tend to have this problem, and said the compressor was no good and that there is metal in the system and basically to fix it the whole unit needs to be replaced, they also said that the car did hold the charge from when I took it into the other place…But no racket at all to be heard…
The A/c when turned on was not blowing cool air, no noise to be hear at all. I thought it only needed to be re charged and so the took it in. I was told they could find no leaks, but that it would not hold the charge, and to durther look into the problem I would have to go else where.
After they checked it out, they called me to say, this make and model tend to have this problem, would not be an easy fix, the compressor was no good, and that they would need to redo the unit because there was metal in the system, as this is what happens when a compressor goes bad…and for how long was it blowing warm air…it worked last summer when needed, so during the cooler months when it was not being used…
At this point I’m a little skeptical about this trashed compressor diagnosis.
If the compressor was bad enough to create metal particles in the system (wonder how they physically determine this on an unopened system?), then it should have been preceded by noise of some kind: rattling, knocking, grinding, etc. whenever the A/C was on.
I would fish around for another opinion or two on this. What should be done is perform a leak inspection (either with dye or the use of an electronic refrigerant sniffer) and if there is not an obvious leak, then apply a system charge to it. If you legitimately have a bad compressor (not likely IMHO) then that compressor should be making noise immediately upon applying the first can of refrigerant.
I can’t say as I agree at all with the bit about the compressors being prone to failure. These compressors are also used on other makes of cars (Chrysler, Dodge, Eagle, and various other Mitsubishi models). My daughter has owned 2 Eclipses and 1 Galant and the only compressor failure was on the Galant at 140k miles. This was not the fault of the car or the compressor; I traced it back to a screwup by the guy she bought the car from.
Hope that helps anyway.
I want to thank you for your help…and your time …it does help, I will be taking it into a couple of other places to see what they say. I know not much about these things, and have also asked around to those I know, they agree with you that it should be making a noise if that was the case…just hard to know where to go and when you don’t know much about cars,…if what your being told is honest info…thank you again, was very kind of you to share…
Just a thought: Are the pressures OK and steady? Leak tested with dye or electronic? On cars with hard to find leaks I use both methods. Holding vacuum?
I believe it was tested with the dye, will have to ask about electronic…though was told there was no leak to be found and the last place I had it in I was told it was holding the charge…Holding vacuum, what is that?..remember I am just a girl who knows little about cars.
There is just not enough info to get real specific here BUT since there was no noise involved and if the system is holding a full charge the problem could be nothing more serious than an electrical fault which is causing the compressor to fail to energize.
Without car in hand, the only thing I can suggest is having the pressures checked, post the results back here, and determine if the air compressor is actually operating when the A/C is turned on.
(A low refrigerant charge due to a leak can cause the compressor to be inoperative).
I will explain before an AC system is charged or after it has been opened to the outside air the system needs to be evacuated this is done with a pump that creates a near (not total) vacuum in the system. The goal is to remove moisture as water turns to as gas at a much lower temp in a vacuum (or near vacuum) the moisture is easier to remove. We leave the system under this “vacuum” for a min. 30min. You can se the level of “vacuum” you are pulling on your low side pressure gague. If upon removal of the pump supplying the vacuum the gague moves rapidly to the postive you have a leak. This is a quick way to determine if you have a large leak and if you should continue with the charging process. It is not a accurate way to check for small leaks and should not be used to replace either the dye method or the electronic tester. The amount of Vacuum you will be able to pull will be affected by the pump you are using as well as the humidity and the elevationof your area. This Kind of AC knowledge can bae learned in one 16week semester at your community colledge. To become accurate profitable AC tech will take a good bit more time. Overall AC work is not that hard.Post is to Justagirl