[jsansom]

Hi all,

Has anyone experienced their air con compressor failing on their BMW 330e please?

I must admit i was shocked to have BMW Carry out the investigation (158.40) as my air con was not cold although a few months prior i had it re gassed to tell me the compressor needs changing and that will cost £2191.70. The cars only just 6 years old and has done 38000 miles.

Seems such a lot of money so i was wondering if anyone had any ideas beside bite the bullet and pay it :>) is 6 years fair usage for such an expensive part to fail?

I hope you are all having a good B/H weekend and appreciate any advice.

Regards
J

[MidtownMike]

Oy that's a bloody shitload of quidz mate.

I would say that's definitely not acceptable. If your car has always been serviced by BMW and you followed their recommendations/intervals for airco vacuum and refill, I would definitely have the dealer apply for "leniency" or as the Germans call it "Kulanz" with BMW AG.

Under EU consumer law, you can still claim (partial) damage if the product breaks within it's "life expectancy". However, you have be able to prove that you did not misuse it.
If the car was produced, imported, and bought by you before Brexit you might even still have the EU rights to claim.

Very curious: did the dealer say anything about what could have caused this?

[jsansom]

Yeah that's what i thought when i saw the price....

They also started the air con cools the high voltage batteries so sounds like it's a fix that will have be be done.

My 330e has always been serviced by BMW, and they basically give gave me the report / vehicle health check showing when they carried out check test module found internal fault with EKK prompted to replace electric air con compressor. No talk around good will gesture or what may of caused it, just go away and think about it as its a lot of money. I will write in and ask the question around why it may of failed and if they can offer any good will gesture see what they say.

Thanks for your reply.

J

[MidtownMike]

Good to first try the friendly route indeed.
If they are uncooperative, I would take a firmer stand and demand that BMW at least meet you half way on the cost.
If you look up the life expectancy of a modern aircon compressor in a car, general consensus is the car lifetime or 12-15 years. Your car is not even 6 years old and has relatively low mileage, so no reason to think it would last less than 12 years. Assuming you haven't been driving around in the Middle East, no excessive wear and tear expected.
Conservatively speaking, the aircon failed halfway it's expected lifespan. BMW should only charge you half of the repair/replacement cost. Simple as that.

Funny fact: aircon system including compressor already lasted 24 years on my BMW E36 316i, was still blowing cold with refill intervals of 2-3 years, and as far as I know still going strong with the new owner. New cars are a pile of shite.

[jsansom]

Thanks for the advice really appreciate it, i will writ to them tomorrow and post the update once received.

[MidtownMike]

Good luck man and really hope it helps.

Very curious to hear what exactly made it fail. Usually it's loss of lubrication because of a leak (the system is filled with a mixture of refrigerant and lubricant). If that is the case, the question is of course: what caused the leak and where is it located.

Just saying that your compressor needs replacing without telling you what caused the failure or without doing a proper leak check of your system does not sound very professional and helpful. Usually there is a UV indicator fluid mixed with the refrigerant too, and the mechanic should use a blacklight to check for leaks.

Any leak should be fixed before replacing the compressor.

If it's not leaking, then did BMW add the proper amount of lubricant to the refrigerant? Usually with a regas, you get a printout of the amount (of mixture) extracted from the system, and the amount of refrigerant and lubricant filled.

[SIKH BMW]

Hi,

So over the weekend my 2017 330e started to blow warm air and before that the compressor was making a little noise. Getting it recharged with refrigerant this week and hoping that it's just a leak. I drive the hell out of it and am a little over 100k miles so I'm not sure if this is normal but if the compressor needs replaced I would be very concerned. Let us know if you have heard back yet. I'm probably following your steps here.

[jsansom]

I had a reply yesterday as i put in a complaint to BMWUK but no good they wont help in anyway as out of warranty period for me.

Now to find just over 2k to fix it....

[AlmondJayRoM3]

Originally Posted by MidtownMike

Good luck man and really hope it helps.

Very curious to hear what exactly made it fail. Usually it's loss of lubrication because of a leak (the system is filled with a mixture of refrigerant and lubricant). If that is the case, the question is of course: what caused the leak and where is it located.

Just saying that your compressor needs replacing without telling you what caused the failure or without doing a proper leak check of your system does not sound very professional and helpful. Usually there is a UV indicator fluid mixed with the refrigerant too, and the mechanic should use a blacklight to check for leaks.

Any leak should be fixed before replacing the compressor.

If it's not leaking, then did BMW add the proper amount of lubricant to the refrigerant? Usually with a regas, you get a printout of the amount (of mixture) extracted from the system, and the amount of refrigerant and lubricant filled.

This. It’s really important to diagnose before just recharging or even a compressor failure. Unfortunately not all dealers will do the proper diagnosis and will just fix the symptom.

#1 cause of a compressor failure is running it with low refrigerant. It might only be a small symptom of ac not blowing as cold causing the compressor to overwork. Eventually refrigerant and lubricant is either too low or the ratios too out of spec that it causes the compressor to literally start falling apart and send bits of it throughout the system. Obviously this fix gets really expensive.

Another scenario is that it just gets recharged to fix the low refrigerant with no actual check of the lubricant load. This sometimes results in too much refrigerant as compared to the lubricant which temporarily causes the ac to feel extra cold. Owner might think the ac is working great while the compressor slowly destroys itself.

[jsansom]

Is it best for me to ask them to re-gas it then before paying to replace the compressor? surly they should be doing the necessary checks they charged me £158 to tell me the compressor is faulty...

I just don't know how to get a second opinion as it seems all BMW specialist dealers in the area don'f touch hybrids and tell me to go to main dealer.

[agentorange]

If this had happened to me living in the desert SW I could almost understand it, but back in Blighty? Not so much.

[SIKH BMW]

Well I'm absolutely screwed. The service tech literally said to me that maybe it's time to talk to sales instead of doing the repairs. It will cost me a little over $14k to fix which is almost the value of the car. I'll attach the bill for those curious. I'm just at a loss of words and have no idea what to do.

View post on imgur.com

[agentorange]

The way I read that estimate suggests the main A/C condenser failed and maybe some debris from that event took out the compressor. What I'm less convinced about is why that would kill the A/C for the mild hybrid battery.