My 07 AC went out last fall as the weather got cool and I just got around to having it checked. Acura dealer says it exploded and sent shavings throughout the lines to the tune of a $4k replacement of the entire system. Needless to say that's not about to happen on an 8 year old car with 189k on it. Not trusting mechanics any further than I can throw them, I wonder if I can get by with a system flush and new compressor?

 

It depends what happened to the scroll compressor. Sometimes they sieze w/o a lot of metal loss, sometimes do.

I had a scroll compressor sieze on a Subaru that did not leave any debris behind (failed scroll hub). I replaced receiver/drier and compressor, vacuumed and recharged. It was still cooling fine when I sold it.

You can find a used compressor for a reasonable price, flush the system (evap not really flushable), replace the receiver/drier, and hope for the best.

good luck

 

My friend's EP3's compressor broke apart inside. Made some amazing noises.

Did yours make any noise?

 

The worst noise I've ever heard from a car, and then there was the white smoke. It was a grand exhibition I must say.

 

https://acurazine.com/forums/first-g...repair-860381/

Yep. I was able to get away with replacing the compressor (which is a pain), the filter/drier and the TXV. You probably can try these and see how it goes. With the mileage your condenser is probably in pretty bad condition too. You may want to replace that for piece of mind.

Good luck.