Never understood how there is the EPA 609 certification for using AC equipment, yet anyone can pump as many cans of the crap at AutoZone in their car as they want.

 

Not surprising too with how much those auto stores advertise it. Their ads make it seem like it's a normal part of routine maintenance to just shoot a can of that junk in your car for "cooler air!".

 

Most dealers and indy repair centers do not know about the EPA 609 certification.
Below is the ASE link.
Refrigerant Recovery and Recycling Program - Automotive Service Excellence

Same thing for big rig over the road truck drivers needing the CPL or CDL license.
You can drive an over the road grey hound bus looking camper thing on a standard license.

 

Nice write up. Indeed operating the system low on freon and repeated fillings to questionable levels, with no additional oil, doomed the compressor. Some will just never listen to Professional advise. Only waiting for catastrophic failure before addressing and costing leagues more.

I worked on BMW's for a number of years. Their N52 engines had a very well known drive belt tensioner issue. One, oil leaked notoriously from the Oil Filter Housing gasket and would leak directly onto the drive belt. Two, the belt tensioner on all of them begin to fail, cocking out and shredding the belt eventually. In either case, the drive belt can shred and when it does, it almost always wraps around crank pulley and is ingested into the engine through the crankshaft seal. Just behind that is the timing chain. In many cases, it involves removing the oil pan, sometimes the valve cover, in order to remove all the drive belt pieces. In the worst cases, it clogs the oil sump with belt material made fine by the grinding up from the timing chain. Even worse is the belt causing timing to jump.

So had a customer come in for an Oil Service. We always checked the condition of Oil Stand Leakage and Drive belt tensioner. Lady said she couldn't afford the less than $300 repair for a new belt tensioner and belt. Fair enough. We told her she should not drive the car until it was repaired and this one was Really Bad. She said ok, I won't. 4 days later it returned on a hook with a no crank, no start. Belt shredded, ingested into timing chain, jumped time, all valves bent. We questioned her if she drove it. Her response was "well just around town and to work" Aghhh. So it was around 8 Grand for a replacement engine. She was a nurse and couldn't afford the $300 but came up with $8K and replaced the engine. Blows the mind sometimes.

 

So what is the cost of full system replacement?

 

Obviously depends on your location, shop rate and all that, for this particular one which has both front and rear evaporator coil, before tax they were looking at about 4.5k in parts (all factory parts, my shop don't do mark up on parts, so this is going to be anywhere from 10-30% more depending on the shop) and I quoted them 20hr labor (probably under quoted), not sure what's the book time since there are tons of labor overlap.

For comparison, just the front evaporator, you'll be looking at about 10hr book time and $800 in parts (all factory parts). a little more if the car uses 1234YF.

 

The dealer told me that just replacing the two evaps was $5,500. I had an extended warranty so they charged Volvo $4,500. I paid the $100 deductible. The warranty now paid for it self twice over.

 

It will certainly pay for additional services. Glad you got that warranty!

 

Was a no brainer. The A/C quit on my 1997 850 with 400k on the odometer in 2010. The repair/replacement cost was multiples of the cars BB value. My Volvo dealer gave me what I thought was a ridiculously high trade in value Maybe because the car I wanted had been on his lot for nearly a year. A few weeks later I saw what looked like ”my” 850 on a 4 lane near town. I got beside it and confirmed that it had been mine as it had a small dent in the driver’s side rear door. Driver had a big smile on his face as he had all 4 windows down and the sunroof open. This was during August in Georgia. I would call this a win/win

 

Even doing the core, its no small task. Covered by extended warranty ♥.