At what point do you replace a condenser v. flush it? Putting a new compressor, drier, orifice in the truck. Cleaned the evaporator out the past weekend.

Last June on the honeymoon I lost the bearing and nose cone on the compressor. Compressor internals were still fine, nothing grenaded - so I had shop replace just the compressor and they did a flush/refill.


Now, my pulley bearing is making noise. Per the Sanden compressor manual I think my compressor is going too. Hence replacing everything, And wondering if I should replace the condenser.

Thanks.

 

Since I do the work myself I replace it all at the same time.
I had to do my evap last spring because it rotted out (darn bad design for the airbox)
The evap was $30, the Compressor was $130, 2 flex lines ~$20 a piece, the condensor was $25, C&D was ~$40, and the tank of 134 was $200. A couple of hours and less than $500 I ended up with a brand new A/C system and enough refrigerant to fix 5 more systems.
To have someone else do just the evap would have been almost twice that.

I realize that it probably wasn't neccesary but it would have been a real kick in the nads if after changing out the evap my compressor failed from a small chunk of crud that I missed in the system.

 

Condenser is easy to inspect, if it looks good I'd keep it and flush it.

Ditto on what VADSLRAM said on doing the work yourself...I had to replace everything and my prices were a little higher, about $750 including a little vacuum pump.

 

Thanks guys. Probably just keep it. And I'm doing my own work minus vacuum/flush/recharge.