Last Tuesday I went to see the mechanical man (Mechman) in Hesperia Ca. It took 6 hours to custom fit his alternator in the limited space of my infiniti. I helped him and we got it to fit and it works great, now my car charges between 3.6 and 3.3 volts while driving. We could have done more volts but because of my super charger we had to use a bigger pulley and I'll have to set the idle to 900 rpm for idling in traffic. Dennis is a great guy and charged me only $200.00 for all the work. Because we had to drop the AC compressor I went to a station to get a freon recharge and believe it or not the green AC oil was running out the bottom of the car! Then I remember he took off the filler nut on top of the compressor and never re tightened it. So back to Mechman and he had to remove the compressor and tighten the bolt. Meanwhile Dennis lives in an area where the roads are just sand and dust and my car was filthy so I had to stop and wash it twice to get rid of the sand.

That part was easy. Now it's Wednesday AM and I find a place called B&D automotive. I stopped in and asked them to recharge my AC so they hook up their machine and later came back and told me the system won't hold a vacuum. They spent an hour telling me a myriad of scenarios of what could be wrong. Finally I said drop the compressor and lets take a look. An hour later they did drop the compressor and showed me where someone had previously messed up the threads for the bolts holding the lines to the unit and they said I need a new one. I figured OK the unit is 11 years old and the threads have been messed up so OK.

I ask him to get an infiniti or nissan unit and he said fine the job will cost $700.00 for everything and I agreed. 2 hours later The unit shows up and I wanted to see it. They tried to talk me out of going back to the shop but I forced the issue and I look at the unit and it appeared to be a rebuild from a parts store. They said nothing but I went and called the only nissan dealership in the entire area and said to the parts man "this is B&D automotive and we're wondering where the compressor is and they said we didn't sell an AC compressor to anyone in the area and he also said they're the only one to supply this unit in that part of the country. I went back to the shop and said I know that's not a nissan unit, what happened? The guy looks at me and said "oh the nissan dealer didn't have the unit after all so we got one from our parts supplier and I was too busy to tell you. Now I'm really angry but I felt they had my car and what could I do. Now 3 more hours pass I go back to the shop to see what's wrong and they got snippy with me and told me to go back to the waiting area. Another 2 1/2 hours elapse and finally they came back to tell me they put my original AC compressor back on and recharged the system because when they installed the rebuilt unit it acted exactly like my unit and wouldn't hold a vacuum. Then the guy said maybe my recharge machine is not operating correctly!
He continued, since you were here all day I won't charge you a dime for everything. What could I say?, the AC has been working fine since then. Bizarre

 

It's odd ... that is for sure. Sorry ya had to wait all that time. I'm glad your back in da cool air!

 

Very strange....How did they get the lines to stay on the compressor if he said the threads were stripped ??

-matt

 

Good question, can you imagine the number of people who get screwed over by garages as they travel across the country and their car breaks down.
My wife said she felt like they were holding us hostage with our car. What good is it to start screaming?, they will probably stop working and make you wait even longer. Or if you try not to pay they call the police who may be their brother-in-law and you may wind up in jail.

 

That's strange. The guy was probably looking for a quick way to make money. I'm sure they had to just torque the bolt down. Did he show you that the A/C wasn't holding vacuum?

 

Yes, the first time with my unit I did see the vacuum drop off after 5 minutes.

 

Just think how many time that scenario worked against the customer and the money made from people who didn't question what they were doing.

 

i30krab, good to hear from you. Sorry that u had to go through this. I've recently started reading through the nissan service manual about AC and learning some stuff. I'm curious how many miles you have on your car? How's the AC now? Does it cool right away at idle and how cool does it get?

Jae

 

They just know you caught them in the act of trying to pull a fast one on you. And as Mike Savage would say.." that's awl".

 

Hey guy, how are you?

I have 63,000 miles on the car. The AC works great and cools right up at idle and it gets very cold. I haven't checked it with a thermometer yet but at a 72 degree setting it cools the car extremely well even at 105 deg outside.

I'm sure now that garage's ac machine was leaking, not my car.

 

You must check everything these mechanics do. They don't have to be dishonest, they may not know what they're doing and the worse part is they don't know they don't know. Does stupidity equal dishonesty? Probably in a lot of situations it does!!

 

Yeah they were trying to scam you> shocked though one look at you car and they should've known you know your $**t, I did residential a/c awhile ago and saw first hand all the slight of hands scumbags use, my thought is be honest and you get repeat customers that trust you. Anyways sorry you blew a whole day on their scam but atleast you got a free charge of it. You caught them- all they had to do is leave the manifolds' hose on loose thus loss of vacuum or if it really was your comp thread that was stripped just get a slightly longer screw to reach the unaffected part of the thread< this is prob what they did, however the hose was probably the culprit..good catch.

 

Thurz you sound as if your having prob's with ur a/c. I'm not ASE cert., but comm/residential yes it's pretty much the same just diff application. At idle it should blow cold but as you press the gas it should get slightly colder (to make up for ambient temp changes) because comp spins faster. If it's warm chances are that ur charge is off. In residential most techs look for a 20 degree split between ambient temp indoor and temp coming out directly above the air handler. In automotive because of the sun and engine heat etc., the little system in your car operates at a higher tonage equivalence than the average 3 ton res a/c. Last time I checked mine I belive I had close to a 30 deg split, measure temp in cab (ex.100 deg) then put your therm directly into your vent, if it's coming out around 70-76 ish degrees your pretty good. It's hard to guage pressures on automotive this is why repairs ussually don't blow as good as factory, this is due to rotation of comp and your gas pedal variable, meaning ur getting a variable charge (At high speeds your car may get hot inside cause it's undercharged). When i did mine I recycled out the remaining 134a changed the receiver (must), pulled a vacuum down to 30hg, added oil (Pag-check FSM don't rem.. ), checked FSM for exact weight of charge. I remember it being just shy of two 12 oz. cans.(don't add 2 whole cans overcharge is just as bad as undercharge or worse). The reason I emptied the whole charge prior to recharging was to get a better idea of just how much refrigerant is in the system, you can even use a pocket scale to weigh the can as you charge to see how much is being dispensed just get an old empty can place valve fitting on it (no hose) put it on the scale and zero it out so when you put the full can on the scale you get actual refrig wgt. Special tools are needed so just pay the shop to pull a vacuum and bring the 2 cans, don't let them charge with a 30 lb tank unless they have a digital scale for charging- most mechanics have a tendency to charge the system by pressure alone - pressures change with speed so charging by weight will get you a lot closer to factory than their guessing.
Sorry for the disertation but if your not having a/c prob's - just my assumtn- maybe it'll help some body else out.
SAM R.

 

Dont you love the fact that even with a little mechanical knowledge, you know when your getting bs handed to you. Like another post^ said theres nothing like repeat business when your honest, 1 happy customer recommends at least 10 people to you, and vice versa when they know you tried to screw them, that guys just a freakin idiot. It was evident when you caught them lying.