A/C evaporator failed

[HDriver]

Hello all, I got the bad news from my tech that the a/c evaporator has failed and it will cost me $2600.
i know is a labor intensive job but damn that’s a lots of cash. Any ideas or suggestions?

[duracellttu]

What were your symptoms? Just AC not blowing cold?

[benzthis]

just keep recharging the ac until winter.if it takes a couple of weeks to leak out it could be worth going that route.

[eacmen]

Hello all, I got the bad news from my tech that the a/c evaporator has failed and it will cost me $2600.
i know is a labor intensive job but damn that’s a lots of cash. Any ideas or suggestions?

Sorry man. How did he diagnose it was the evaporator?

If you don't have any passengers can always just get a coolshirt:

https://coolshirt.com/

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[Inizes]

Super labor intensive from what I’ve seen. I would ask how much refrigerant came out of the system to verify it’s bad.

[jbfrancis3]

It sure is. Where do you live and what is the primary purpose of your vehicle?

[HDriver]

Thank you for all the replies I am in Florida and when the shop try to recharge the system the Freon immediately flushed out.

[jbfrancis3]

I can see how the higher humidity would lead to a failure. If it were me in your location, I would suck it up and have it replaced. I'd get at least another quote but the initial one isn't surprising. I personally would also pay more for the OEM evaporator and its quite a bit more if I spot check ECS - $100 vs $500. Is a new drier included (plus labor to get to it)?

[ATB88]

It's not a fun job, but definitely DIYable over 2 days and a few 6 packs of beer. You don't have to get under the car or anything, and the hardest part is that it's long and you need to stay organized and really make sure you're really labeling all your screws etc. Any special tools (AC pressure gauges and vacuum pump) can easily just be rented from Autozone. At least in my situation, those 2 days were easily worth the $1500+ in labor. But I'm a grad student.. the calculus on time vs money will look different for everyone. The only part I screwed up in the end was that I overfilled it with refrigerant in the end, it's hard to get it right from the gauges on those dumb AC refill cans. I say it's worth bringing it to a mechanic after you're done and paying the $200 to have the system filled to the exact right spec, but it's not totally necessary. There's a guy out there who made a super detailed set of DIY instructions for doing this job on any E46, since this was such a common issue affecting all of them. I can track them down for you if you want to take a look, PM me.

I got the OEM Behr evaporator over the OE to save some bucks. I found that in my case the fitment wasn't spot on: I had to bend one of the lines on the evaporator so that it would mate up with the car's lines after install. May have just been the particular one I got was off. If it's OEM it *should* be just as good. It's also possible that I didn't install it 100% properly. In my case it wasn't a big deal and I made it fit without much trouble. Anyway, thought I'd mention it.

[Redline]

Easy diy, it’s just nuts and bolts. Hardest part was removing the shear bolt on the steering column...just use masking tape and a sharpie to label each harness connector and push the bolts into cardboard and label where they go. Did it in a few hours start to finish. But then again I used to be a bmw tech. Average person can do it over a weekend.

be careful with the pillars.

[eacmen]

Easy diy, it’s just nuts and bolts. Hardest part was removing the shear bolt on the steering column...just use masking tape and a sharpie to label each harness connector and push the bolts into cardboard and label where they go. Did it in a few hours start to finish. But then again I used to be a bmw tech. Average person can do it over a weekend.

be careful with the pillars.

Someone showed me the bolts in cardboard trick a few years ago. Solid advice, I use it all the time!


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