Faulty Car part - Claim for hire car missed holiday

shaun_from_Africa

takman wrote: »

Considering that other people have explained how a broken compressor wouldn't have damaged the car you need to explain more.

How exactly would driving the car have caused it damage?. If you can't even answer this most basic question then how can you justify the cost of a hire car?

That "most basic question" has already been answered.
As already explained, driving a car with a broken compressor can cause further damage if the compressor clutch has broken or the pulley wheel driveshaft bearing has seized or broken up and it may make no difference if the aircon is turned on or not.

I have a 2001 4.2L and 3 days ago my belt burnt up and snapped due to the pulley on the compressor seizing up. After reading through many threads for the past couple days today I took off the plate and was able to see the bearings just rolling around in there. My objective today was to see if the compressor is seized or just the clutch

Your AC compressor is driven by the crankshaft. So is the timing chain. If an AC compressor were to suddenly seize while the engine was running, say at 3,000 rpm, it would typically pop its drive belt (in modern cars that's often a serpentine belt) before stopping the crankshaft completely, but I suppose it is possible for it to stop the crankshaft and the chain jump a tooth......if there's already wear in the timing chain system.

It all depends. Obviously, you should not attempt to use your A/C until this is repaired. If the noise is coming from the compressor clutch, you may have a serious problem brewing. If the clutch seizes, which is a common method of failure, it will destroy the belt which runs it. Some vehicles have a separate belt for the A/C compressor, some vehicles have belt-driven components divided between 2-3 belts, and some vehicles use only one belt to drive everything. If this happens, anything else that shares the belt with the A/C compressor will also stop working. If your alternator is on this belt, your car will shut off and stay off once the battery becomes discharged. If the water pump is on this belt, your car will shortly begin to overheat, and you will cause damage to the engine if you continue to drive

takman

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

That "most basic question" has already been answered.
As already explained, driving a car with a broken compressor can cause further damage if the compressor clutch has broken or the pulley wheel driveshaft bearing has seized or broken up and it may make no difference if the aircon is turned on or not.

Yeah that's fair enough but he didn't say that the clutch in the compressor has broken or thay the pulley wheel has seized up. He has simply said the compressor is broken and it is possible for it to break and not cause any damage to the car.

If I had a problem with a component on my car that would cause it damage if I drove it i would ask for a full explanation of the problem if I didn't fully understand it.

shaun_from_Africa

If something has broken internally, it would be hard, if not impossible for a breakdown recovery person to diagnose the fault with the compressor in situ. As a component such as this isn't something that they would replace at the roadside, they may well not even have any experience in working on the systems.


The chances are that the RAC man was just covering his ar5e by saying that the car couldn't be driven without causing further damage but until they could see the compressor unit stripped down, this was really the only sensible advice to give.

takman

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

If something has broken internally, it would be hard, if not impossible for a breakdown recovery person to diagnose the fault with the compressor in situ. As a component such as this isn't something that they would replace at the roadside, they may well not even have any experience in working on the systems.


The chances are that the RAC man was just covering his ar5e by saying that the car couldn't be driven without causing further damage but until they could see the compressor unit stripped down, this was really the only sensible advice to give.

That's a good point and probably the reason thathat he advised that. But I still think the OP should have asked some more questions and got a better understanding of the situation. Especially considering he then went and spent £200 on a hire car.