The AC in our SE stopped working a few days ago and the AC repair guy showed me the leak on the evaporator...well I can't see a hole or anything but there's the refrigerant near the return pipe. He said I was lucky to get 11 years service from it and that they usually fail alot sooner. The car has about 62,000 miles. What are my options? I was wondering if there is anything like aluminium mig welding and if welding is a bad idea on an old evaporator. Where can I get a new one and what's the average price?
Thanks for any help.

 

AAAA I am going to go on instinct and say that you were talking about the CONDENSOR. The evaporator is buried in the dash, and 90% or the time its the condensor, which is right in fron of the radiator that goes. Due to corrosion, and getting hit with crap........ ect. anyway, you need to replace it. period. Look at spending a couple of hundred bucks, and whatever for labor.

 

Aftermarket condensor for your car should run you about 175 bucks. It's easy to install, then have the system evacuated and recharged by a professional.

 

It was the evaporator....the cold part buried in the dash. There was a pin hole at the point where the high pressure line(thin one) enters the evaporator. Dad found a scrap yard with the front cut(car cut in half) of a 97 2.5L Cefiro and he got the evaporator for about $60US. Everything was exactly the same except the low pressure line connection that was smaller than our 95 model. We ended up taking all the lines that go to the compressor from the 97 model but even the compressor fitting was different. Just yesterday we found a guy that specialises in aluminium TIG welding and the filled the hole on our original evaporator and I got it recharged. So far it's working fine so dad went to return the evaporator today. I was telling him maybe we should have kept it considering the price we got it for but as you said, it's more likely for the condenser to fail than the evaporator.