Quote:
Originally Posted by thebmw
I went to the stealership earlier this year to get an AC recharge (parts cost $20). They proceeded to charge me about $500 for the recharge (which takes 10 minutes...maybe 15 on a bad day) and told me I urgently needed almost $14,000 in other repairs. Went to an independent and he said it was all BS. Never going to that dealership again.
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Parts for A/C Service for our cars is actually less than $20 but to say it takes 15 minutes to properly vacuum and recharge an A/C System is very misleading. There is doing a job properly and then there is guessing and getting lucky that it worked out.
Figure 5-10 minutes to set up and log current low and high side pressures to determine the best course of action. If you decide to vacuum and recharge, initial recovery can be anywhere where 2-5 minutes depending on how much refrigerant is in the system and any decent machine will do a second stage recovery to ensure the system is empty which is another 3-6 minutes. Next stage is to vacuum which depending on system capacity could be anywhere from 5-15 minutes. Finally you would charge to spec and then log the new low and high side pressures which should take another 2-5 minutes.
I've tallied 17-41 minutes (median is 29 minutes) for a process you described as 15 minutes on a bad day. Guess that's how the 19 year old kid working on your car at jiffy lube does it.
My thing is why would you want someone rushing through a service on your 100k car that you will only be doing every 4-5 years anyway? If anyone completes your vacuum and recharge service in 10 minutes you might as well buy a can at autozone and let one the parking lot mechanics do it for you