So my wife was driving our 2000 AP1 on the highway, cruising at around 70mph, when she felt a large bang, saw a puff of white vator, heard some rattling, and pulled off to the side, only to see a bunch of oil/liquid around the wheel well. She had assumed she ran over something, but it turns out that the AC compressor blew. Two mechanics I've taken it to think that's really rare to see that happen, those It seem s a few people on here have mentioned it happening?

The car runs fine (assuming the condensor doesn't fall apart..), however having just gotten the estimate from an s2000 club mechanic shop here in town, IF the condenser needs replacing, I'm looking at a $2900 parts and labor job. This includes replacing the compressor, filters, expansion belet, dryers and flushing the system...If the condenser is fine, its $2300.

I just got off the phone with another shop, and they claim that a full AC job shouldn't be more than $1800, which I'm skeptical about.

Any of you have any idea of how much this kind of job usually costs? I'm trying to weight my options between this, or finally retiring the old guy as a weekend/track car (with no AC) and getting a daily driver to replace it.

 

Not sure...hopefully someone can chime in!

 

sounds like way too much! thats a price of a used engine installed

 

Yeah 2300 is more than i paid for like my first three cars growing up. Take it else where. Or DIY.

 

Almost exactly the same thing happened to my 01 at 110,000 miles on the clock. I found a condenser and A/C compressor for $300 hardly used off an 04 AP2. My total bill from our local S2000 good guy BAWASS LLC (tougeS2k) was another $755 in parts and labor to get the used parts installed and in service. The additional parts I got included: expansion valve $84, receiver $117, serpentine belt $84, various 'O' rings $40. I went with all Honda parts. From what I know a new compressor/clutch assembly is ~$700 and I'm not sure what a new condenser is but probably at least $300. I ended up spending around $1000 with used parts for the main components, so using new with 4 to 5 hours of labor should cost you around $1800 excluding the refrigerant re-charge.

Good luck getting it done with quality at that price though. The real question is why do the compressors essentially blow up with little or no warning. Mine was blowing cold as always until it just seized and essentially blew the clutch apart.