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Another disaster showed up today

chris142 on Wed June 27, 2007 8:57 PM User is offline

Year: 1999
Make: dodge
Model: grand caravan
Country of Origin: United States

Car came to us last year with a worn out clutch bearing that ate the nose cone on the compressor. I put on a new compressor and dryer.

Showed up today, 2 weeks of warranty left with a noisey compressor.

Dessicant bag ruptured and the entire system is filled with it. I have not decided the exact plan of attack yet. I have a new compressor, dryer and condensor ready for it.

I/We do not get into major dash work for several reasons. I have a friend that is pretty good with this kind of stuff and may let him tear into it if my boss approves. Thing has rear AC too.

Obviously I can't throw it together As-Is. What would you guys do?

TRB on Thu June 28, 2007 11:35 AM User is offlineView users profile

In our shop if we changed the compressor to begin with the vehicle would have gotten a complete system flush, accumulator/drier, condenser, expansion device and any hoses which were needed. So now if the vehicle came back as a warranty we honor the 12 month warranty as long as the shrink wrap seal protectors we place on all systems have not been tampered with.

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When considering your next auto A/C purchase, please consider the site that supports you: ACkits.com
Contact: ACKits.com

bohica2xo on Thu June 28, 2007 2:46 PM User is offline

Less than a year, and the dryer bag fails?

1) Where did the failed part come from? How was it stored? What brand?

2) Was the system flushed completely before assembly?

3) Has anyone else worked on the vehicle's A/C system?


I predict that we will see more "new" component failures like this as the "offshore" crap sneaks into our supply system. Chinese toothpaste, wheat gluten, and most recently Tires in the news show that the quality is just not there. E-Bay is flooded with "similar to OEM" products, and some stores are buying the same stuff from the same importers.

I fought a similar issue with counterfit aircraft hardware years ago. There was just too much profit for some of the industry to pass up.

B.

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"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
~ Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi, An Autobiography, M. K. Gandhi, page 446.

chris142 on Thu June 28, 2007 10:51 PM User is offline

Parts came from our Supplier in Reno. Compressor is/was a Sanden but the dryers we get are usually from China. Doesn't seem to matter where I get them locally they are all from there.

I don't think that the original dryer came apart. It was the replacement that I installed last year. I don't know if anybody has messed with it but the people are good customers and I don't see them taking it anywhere else when it's still under warranty.

So far we have flushed it as well as it's gonna get. Putting it together tomorrow and with a filter on the suction side right before the compressor. Remember that I'm just the peeon and I can recomend stuff but my boss has the final say.

The van is on it's last legs. It's not worth what we are putting into it.

TRB on Thu June 28, 2007 11:29 PM User is offlineView users profile

I hear you on the accumulator/driers. Most every supplier is getting into the China market. I will only use a Reno reman as a last resort. I'm friends with that company, but I told them straight to their face. I don't like their remans. They are by no means in the Four Seasons category! But way to much clutch gap setting, bent hubs in shipping among other things. Cheapest is not always the best in my opinion. They are good people, we just have a difference of opinion on some compressors. New models from them are fine for the most part. But again you have to know what you are buying these days. I can offer some compressors that many are selling. But I will not offer those items. Probably losing sales because of it! But I won't offer a product just to make money.

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When considering your next auto A/C purchase, please consider the site that supports you: ACkits.com
Contact: ACKits.com

chris142 on Fri June 29, 2007 12:13 AM User is offline

We dont use remans at all. This was a new compressor and is being replaced with another new one.

TRB on Fri June 29, 2007 12:16 AM User is offlineView users profile

Good deal, I tend to lean towards new also. By the way thanks for helping on the forum!

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When considering your next auto A/C purchase, please consider the site that supports you: ACkits.com
Contact: ACKits.com

chris142 on Fri June 29, 2007 12:44 AM User is offline

Quote
Originally posted by: TRB
By the way thanks for helping on the forum!
Yer welcome. But I'm still learning myself.

NickD on Fri June 29, 2007 8:30 AM User is offline

Doesn't sound like a disaster to me, more like par for the course. Wanted an American made bearing for my last alternator rebuild, only took me two weeks to find one, but I found one. A ton of this new car stuff components is now coming from China, let's see what happens. But give them a couple of years, they will get it right, took the Japanese quite of few years to get it right and completely take over our electronics and entertainment market as a bonus.

Wouldn't it be nice to design something with labor rates of only a dime per hour, the key most important design parameter was always cost, much more so than the technical aspects of the product, fifty buck an hour labor rates and the stockholders came first. The Chinese will follow the Japanese, can't have people working on the production line for a dime an hour making all that fancy stuff and not wanting it themselves. While we could not compete with Japanese in the early 70's we finally could just 17 years later, so what does Clinton do? Switch us over to the Chinese, then another 17 years of no American jobs if history repeats itself. Who is next for cheap labor?

When a customer brings their vehicle in for service, they want it yesterday, 30 years ago, a shop could maintain a small inventory of parts that would cover 90% of the applications, today a number like six has expanded to over 3,000, impossible to keep an inventory of good parts. Then the IRS treats that inventory like profit, but try to pay your real estate taxes or help with a compressor, a guy needs cold hard cash to stay in business.

Back in the 50's, automotive repair shops use to do everything, rebuild engines, transmissions, carburetors, fuel pumps, put in new starter and generator brushes, etc. Today, they just replace components, even engines and definitely transmissions. Did develop quite a rebuilding industry in this country, but that is fast becoming history as most of the parts are throwaway and not even rebuildable. This created a huge recycling problem that we are paying dearly for today.

Be thankful you can still exchange parts, Chris, when a TV manufacturer wants $250.00 for a replacement picture tube for a 150 buck brand new TV set, you won't make any money in the electronics repair field.

There is a disaster all right, the way this country as changed over the last 50 years, you should learn how to play the stockmarket, but have be very good at it or lose everything.

chris142 on Fri June 29, 2007 10:01 PM User is offline

Well it left today. We give a 1-yr parts warranty and 90 days labor warranty. My boss charged them $250 to do the labor.

We flushed, flushed and flushed again. Opened all connections, blew things dry. Put it back together with new parts and I found an inline filter I put in the low side hose right before the compressor.

It was working fine when it left. Customer seemed happy. Not the way I would have handled it.

I don't think that charging them to replace our parts that went bad is right. But I'm not the boss.

TRB on Fri June 29, 2007 11:03 PM User is offlineView users profile

I guess if you state it up front the customer knows this to begin with. We offer a 12 & 12 on our compressor repairs. 30 days on refrigerant.

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When considering your next auto A/C purchase, please consider the site that supports you: ACkits.com
Contact: ACKits.com

boatmoter on Thu July 05, 2007 6:56 PM User is offline

good luck.. the system is contaminated now.. only way to repair it correctly and keep the customer is to replace the accumalator or dryer, expansion block or orfice, and flush and blow the system out good..
or you can patch it to last past the warranty and forget about the customer..

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Glenn //

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