[tatifl]

A few days ago my A/C stopped working - shut off completely, then on by itself and kept going on and off on its own and when it was blowing the air was not cold.

Took it to the shop and was told I needed a new blower resistor. They also said they would have to evacuate and recharge the freon with 2lbs of freon as well a replace the cabin air filter. I paid just under $400 for all of this work :frown:!

I do not have any knowledge when it comes to this :huh: but I felt like I was given the run-around when I asked the guy to explain to me why the freon had to be evacuated and recharged when the blower resistor is replaced. He tried to explain and said something about the freon settling at the bottom and then mixing with new freon and contaminating it, blah, blah....

I'm trying to figure out if in fact they needed to evacuate and recharge the freon at all when replacing the blower resistor - does anyone know if this is the protocal or if I was just ripped off??

Seeing as how I had no idea that there even was a cabin air filter, I am not questioning whether or not that needed replacing.

I hope someone has some good advice for me...

 

[blake]

I am by no means an expert on A/C systems but my understanding is the blower resistor is common to go out. It is what allows the fan to blow at a lower speed than its full speed. If it were just the resistor I believe the only symptom should have been that the fan would only blow on high but should have still been cold. Since you said it was not cold then you probably did need the refrigerant part of the system serviced. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will give a better answer.

 

[nwf_snake]

Sorry, they got you. Blower resistor replacement is a 15 minute job for a Honda tech. Freon is not involved.

 

[tatifl]

But...

Thank you for your input.

Okay, so maybe they got me. When the A/C went out, it wouldn't blow at all in the front (it did blow in the rear of the van) .... then it came on by itself (blowing high), then it shut off on its own, then came back on - and it kept doing this. When it did blow, it blew on high and it blew warm air.

If it were just the blower resistor, would the air coming out still blow cold?

Is it then a (strange) coincidence that something would go wrong with the refrigerant at the very moment the blower resistor went bad??

If I got screwed then I will go back and have a nice talk with them, but I want to be sure that I did in fact get taken before I do that...

 

[William Wiles]

You are talking about two different items. LX has a resister card, EX has a transistor assembly. The resister assembly can loose one or more speeds when it fails. When the transistor fails it only works on high because that bypasses the transistor. When a mechanic gives you multiple items causing the problem you should get a second opinion. Cabin filter has nothing to do with the problem. The only problem it will cause is stink or if bad enough block some air flow. You could have hat low freon causing the problem but that is caused by a leak somewhere in the system. What the real problem was is known only by the mechanic.