4 year old car has failed evaporator

[royalmatt]

My A/C stopped working while the car was sat on the drive during the UK quarantine. I got it regassed and it worked while driving home. However the next day it was not working again. At that point I took it to my nearest skoda dealer to diagnose. Initially they said a pressure sensor needed replacing as they couldn't get it to work at all. 2 weeks later and after that's fixed they tell me they cannot see a leak, and they'll put a lot more dye in and for me to run it for a few weeks.

Before I can even pick it up the next day they've told me they can see a large amount of the dye in the undertray under the dash (I think this is accurate, I can't remember exactly their phrasing here) and so their diagnosis is a failed evaporator unit in the dash unit. They then quote me £1800 to fix it. They also warned me they have no idea what they'll see once they get the dash up so it may be the evaporator itself won't need replacing and a be a cheaper fix, or it may be they say it'll cost more if it's something even more disasterous..

I've now spoken to skoda customer support as well and they've said they're willing to take 10% off the price of the part, and a quarter off the labour costs. I think this means i'll be more like £1300-1400 (and that's if they don't find something even more terminal). They've already had £250 off me for the initial diagnosis and 'fix'.

 

What are your thoughts on this? I bought the car new, had it serviced the first 3 years at their dealership and it's only done 40k miles.

[Breezy_Pete]

Evaporator is item 15 here: https://skoda.7zap.com/en/cz/octavia/oct/2016-753/8/820-820020/

Item 11, the expansion valve may be visible at the back of the engine bay, where the refrigerant hoses attach?

 

There really isn't anything else connected to the refrigerant system inside the cabin other than the evaporator itself, and possibly that valve if you can't see it on the engine bay side of the firewall.

 

Their 10% etc. is an initial 'hope he takes this, that would be awesome' gambit, worth pushing back firmly against with considerable justification; that this is a part that should last the lifetime of the car.

If goodwill can't do better than that, in these circumstances, I'd be quite surprised.  It's not like there's anything you can do as a customer that could damage that part; it almost has to be a manufacturing defect.

[Paul007]

Taking that thread title completely out of context, I find it very 

[Yaumeister]

Seems a lot of AC are breaking down recently, mine is a 2014 and vcds initially reported AC low pressure. Regas and reported the same thing, replaced the sensor and it then reported some valve error (technician says it keeps opening and closing).

 

Next day no AC again, suspect compressor is likely the problem, quoted £300 to fix next week. Hopefully that fixes it?

 

[Breezy_Pete]

^ Best start your own thread rather than tag onto this one. Clearly a different problem; suggest you research N280.

[cheezemonkhai]

I would suggest that the seal dried out during lockdown or that water was in the system and has made a mess of the metal in the system.

 

did they recheck the gas pressure?

[royalmatt]

Thought I should update the post in case others suffer the same issue. I got back to skoda saying I wasn't happy with their offer of 10% and they said they'd see if they could do any better. After almost 4 weeks of weekly updates from them saying they were having discussions between themselves they finally got back to me and RESULT - they're covering 100% of the costs!

 

THANK YOU WINO for your help. Also this result has partially restored my faith in Skoda.

 

It finally went to the dealership yesterday, they said it could take 4 days. I'll update the post again if there is more to add, but hopefully this is the end of it!

 

Thanks again WINO, you saved me £1400 there.

[Breezy_Pete]

Great news Matt, and you're very welcome.

 

Feel free to buy me a cheap bottle of red if you like. 😀

 

Strangely enough, since you started this thread, I found a fault in the A/C system of my 2005 Polo (rescued from a one-way trip to the scrapyard earlier this year).  

Not in or associated with the evaporator, but actually a connection to the condenser that had clearly been leaking (wasn't clear to me until disassembled and seeing the 'mucked up' state of the o-ring).

Funny thing was, it was the original condenser, date-code consistent with factory fit, and the car's history suggested that a condenser leak was noted six or seven years back, exact location not noted, and not fixed.

I reckon that o-ring probably leaked gently from day one of factory installation.

Just hoping that I haven't done the same thing to this o-ring when I reassembled with new condenser (probably unneeded) and supplied o-ring.  Must get round to organising a re-fill.