Air con - hot and bothered

zbre

Audi Q7 2011

Back in August this year I bought a car at a 2nd hand dealer. On testing the car I noticed air con wasn’t working and asked the seller how they would be prepared to help to make a sale. 

The seller offered to knock off the price of an air con service which ultimately I thought was fair enough.

Took the car to Halfords who diagnosed a chipped condenser at £370 including the original diagnostic cost and labour. 

The seller offered to pay half which I accepted as apart from the air con the car was perfect.

Once I went to collect the car from Halfords they had come up against a problem, another leak elsewhere with a labour intensive cost plus part at £400 discounted from £700. I’d be mental to proceed so I’m now left with some options it seems unless anyone else can see any others?

Store manager offered the first 3 options. 

What would you do? I What are my rights?  

1. Walk away from Halfords.
2. Pay £400 to have a pipe fixed.
3…… free mot….

4. Write to Halfords head office,
they’ve misdiagnosed the original problem that I wouldn’t have even entertained had I known the cost involved and walked away having paid a diagnostic charge.

What do I do 😩

Grumpy_chap

zbre said:

Audi Q7 2011

Back in August this year I bought a car at a 2nd hand dealer. On testing the car I noticed air con wasn’t working and asked the seller how they would be prepared to help to make a sale. 

The seller offered to knock off the price of an air con service which ultimately I thought was fair enough.

Took the car to Halfords who diagnosed a chipped condenser at £370 including the original diagnostic cost and labour. 

The seller offered to pay half which I accepted as apart from the air con the car was perfect.

Once I went to collect the car from Halfords they had come up against a problem, another leak elsewhere with a labour intensive cost plus part at £400 discounted from £700. I’d be mental to proceed so I’m now left with some options it seems unless anyone else can see any others?

Store manager offered the first 3 options. 

What would you do? I What are my rights?  

1. Walk away from Halfords.
2. Pay £400 to have a pipe fixed.
3…… free mot….

4. Write to Halfords head office,
they’ve misdiagnosed the original problem that I wouldn’t have even entertained had I known the cost involved and walked away having paid a diagnostic charge.

What do I do 😩

Did Halfords misdiagnose the original problem?
If the original problem was actually there (damage to the condenser) then that repair needed to be done.

If they then found an additional issue, leaky hose, that needs to be done in addition.
Halfords already seem to have made a large gesture towards the cost (plus they'll give you the free MOT when due), so either get the job done at Halfords (£400) or take the car elsewhere if you can get it done for less.  

I'd probably take the Halfords £400 plus free MOT and move on.

Rubber perishes and, on your 10 yo car, you are going to start find that there are more parts degrading.  A Q7 is never going to be cheap to run - hence why these enormous big cars depreciate and can be picked up for a song.

zbre

Yes I can see what you mean regarding ‘picked up for a song’ was never expecting it to be cheap to run was just a bit annoyed that potentially the air con was misdiagnosed (without knowing much about cars at all to be honest I am learning a lesson here). Thank you for the reply. 

Ditzy_Mitzy

Forget about it and open the window on hot days.  This is Money Saving Expert!

In fairness this sounds like one of those things that's not really anyone's fault.  The likelihood is that the damaged condenser allowed the refrigerant gas to escape; replacing it then plugged one hole in the system, but not the second hole in the other pipe.  When Halfords attempted to refill and pressurise the system, the refrigerant then exited through the other hole.  Whether that was already there or whether firing the system back up again blew the seals will remain unknown.  The point, however, is that it doesn't matter.  The car had two faults, fixing one does not fix the other.

Fix it or put up with it.  Halfords haven't done anything wrong here; the likelihood is that the second leak was impossible to diagnose without pressure in the system.  The joys of owning old cars...

molerat

IMO the only people who can correctly diagnose air con are air con specialists.  The average garage and fast fit only has vacuum and fill machine which is pretty useless for anything other than a gaping hole, a specialist will drain and nitrogen and uv dye pressurise.