Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting 60,000 miles and no AC

I am a mechanical engineer with the car knowledge limited to the knowledge: that if i keep gas in my car, it goes. fortunately, i have had zero problems with my car until yesterday!

so anyway, I am having the dealer do my 60,000 mile tune-up on my 98 ford contour with the V6 and he says the Air Conditioning isn't working at all. something is wrong. well he is right, i tried running it the day before and got nothing.

BUT!
$95 just to have them check it out!!! that is very anger-inducing.

I don't know much about cars (this is my first car), as stated above, but, people are telling me that the AC should not die after 60,000 miles. Is this true? if so, has anyone else had a problem with theirs?

and say it is dead, and will cost all sorts of mon-ay to fix. do you know if this should/is/might be covered under some kinda warranty?

Thanks for any help!



-s

Two things to remember about A/C systems:

1. To diagnose A/C issues, they put in a full charge of refrigerant along with a dye for leaking checking and then run it while scanning for visible dye with a UV light. $95 is high for diagnosis, should be more like $70-75, but usually they take that off of the repair bill.

2. Any A/C repair above and beyond recharge is going run you at least $500 and probably more. The parts aren't cheap and the A/C components are usually buried so the labor isn't, either. The diagnostic fee will be peanuts compared to the final bill. Sorry, but that's how it is. Doesn't matter if it's a dealer or an independent shop.

No, A/C shouldn't die at 60K, but these are Fords we're talking about. My '94 Taurus has gone through two each manifold and accumulator assemblies, one compressor, and a blower control module. It may be covered under an extended warranty, but that's it.

Sounds like you've had a pretty reliable car so a check of a/c isn't a big expense after 60k miles. I had same problem with my '97 with similar mileage, turned out to be a simple top-up of refrigerant. I use an a/c specialist shop and total cost was about $70 US.
If there's anything broken or major leaking however; big bucks. That's when real men decide they don't need a/c.

One good thing I've noticed about the Contique and current model Ford vehicles is there are more spring-lok couplings in the system, meaning if there is a leak you don't have to tear up half the system to fix it. The down side is more potential points for freon to leak out, but an occasional recharge is far preferable to the extra parts and labor cost.

thanks for the input folks.

now that i have the car back with AC. i'll tell you what they did.

supposedly it was running next to bone dry as far as freon goes, and supposedly 6 o-rings went on it. so they had to replace those as well.

think it was about $240 for the o-rings and the freon rejuice. plus the cost of having the system checked which ended up $75.

not too happy about having to spend the money, but after 60,000 miles and i am just now spending money on it, i am not too upset.

thanx again.

-s

Is there stuff you can do to help maintain it? Have it topped up with freon every couple years?