I went to the Hanover Park Car-X on July 14, 2006 and asked them to check my brakes and air conditioner. They charged me $754.08 to fix my brakes, but found nothing wrong with the A/C.
On August 15, 2006 my A/C completely stopped working. I brought my car back to the same Car-X and left it with them to diagnose the problem. They found a blown low side hose, and said they would have the part the next day. They called on the 16th to tell me that they received the wrong part, and would have the correct one on the 17th. They called on the 17th to say they had again gotten the wrong part, but would have the correct one on the 18th. Their call on the 18th was to say that they had finally received a part close enough to the original that they could make it work. I finally had my A/C repaired on the 18th, for $515.86
On Saturday the 19th (the very next day) my A/C again stopped working. I again brought it back to the same Car-X. This time they found the high pressure relief valve on the compressor had blown, and wanted $507.61 to replace it, without charging me for labor or refrigerant. I spent the next 15 minutes or so arguing with the tech in front of the manager. I insisted that simply replacing the compressor would accomplish nothing, and that he instead first needed to figure out what was causing the high pressure in the system that caused both the hose and the valve to blow. He insisted that he had already checked out the whole system thoroughly, and there was nothing wrong with it other than the compressor. Seeing that I was getting nowhere, I left.
I dropped my car off at a different shop first thing on Monday the 21st. They quickly located the real problem. The dryer was full. The total to replace the dryer and compressor came to $778.08 (they charged me for labor and refrigerant, as rightly they should.)
Had Car-X found the full dryer when I first asked them to check the A/C, it would have cost me around $100 to replace, the hose and compressor would likely never have had to be replaced (which cost me $1293.94), two complete charges of refrigerant would not have been released into the atmosphere, and I would not have been without my car for several days. As “compensation” for this, on August 25, 2006 the store manager gave me $200 store credit and two free oil changes.
