Drove the car to the dealer this morning to have the A/C regassed. I usually pick up at the end of the day, so when they call within an hour of dropping off, you just know something is up.

 

"No sir, not a simple re-gas/service (£79), you need a new compressor. Supplied and fitted comes to £780"

 

Excellent timing too with the recent £200 boiler repair and the washing machine that sounds suspiciously knackered. Ready to sell a kidney, the guy then explains my Skoda service history means they will stump 100% of the parts cost and 50% of the labour. Total for me is £150. I asked him to repeat as I was sure I misheard. Possibly the happiest I've ever been to hear I owe £150.

 

I assume the amount of goodwill is down to the fact the compressor shouldn't need replacing on a 4 year old car? Can I expect continued goodwill in the future, or is it a finite 'pot' that you eventually use up?

 

 

 

You've got plenty to go at yet! I mananged north of £3,000 worth of goodwill gestures on my vRS. 

You've got plenty to go at yet! I mananged north of £3,000 worth of goodwill gestures on my vRS. 

 

Ok, that's comforting. Just in case I'll burn some tyres in the back garden as sacrifice to the car gods to prevent anything else going wrong.

The guy at the dealer this evening had a go at explaining the problem, although I get the impression he was winging it a bit. Essentially a bolt somewhere in/on/near the compressor came loose and caused a splined gear in/on the compressor to be stripped.

If I remember correctly this has happened on other peoples cars before. At the front of the compressor is the drive pulley driven by the same belt that drives the alternator. That drives a clutch which drives the shaft inside the compressor, clutch is held on the shaft by a bolt/ nut which comes loose and allows the hub of the clutch to wobble on the shaft wearing the splines out. Result is new compressor. Not a big job to replace I would have thought so £300 labour a bit expensive in my eyes but as you are only paying half of the labour cost in total for the whole job then happy days.

 

Ian

No clutch on the mkII compressor, it runs all the time and a valve controls the amount of refrigerant which circulates. What tends to happen is the compressor breaks up internally and doesn't compress anymore. The drier also needs to be replaced as bits if metal from the compressor get caught in it.

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The guy manning the service desk was waving his hands a lot whilst explaining, hard to follow. Clutch and break up of internals were both mentioned, so about 50:50 in accuracy I reckon! The compressor labour will be marginally less than £300 as my £150 contribution also includes part of the A/C service (presumably cost of pollen filter and deodorising).