My wife has a '98 Toyota 4Runner with 3.4L V6. It has 139,000 miles and has NEVER had ANY repairs or parts failures of any kind until now. It has had preventive maintenance and wiring repair due to damage not the fault of the car.

The a/c stopped cooling a few weeks ago. The sight glass was clear, so I at first discounted the possibility of a refrigeration problem and started looking for damper problems or heater flow error. I finally put gauges on and found a heavy vacuum on the low side and only 100PSI on the high. It appeared that the expansion valve failed.

I was down trodden once discovering this and learning that the evaporator had to come out to replace the expansion valve. There goes a couple of days to remove and replace.

I got an early start on Saturday morning and found that the evaporator unit was designed to come out VERY EASILY. Two screws for the glove box, three for the glove box brace, three for the cover above the glove box, two connectors on the evaporator unit and five on the evaporator unit itself and then just pull. This was, of course, after disconnecting the high and low lines in the engine compartment that were easily accessible.

I was done to the point of beginning system evacuation in about an hour and fifteen minutes. The other nice thing was that at no time was I upside down with feet sticking out the window while doing this. It was all extremely accessible.

I can only say how thankful I am that it was her Rice Grinder that needed the evaporator removed and replaced instead of my 124 car. The only saving grace with most MB's is that the expansion valve can usually be replaced without removing the evaporator, but I've never had an expansion valve fail on an MB.

It's kind of ironic that the cars with evaporators that commonly fail are the ones with evaporators that are difficult to remove and replace.

I still, however, believe that burying an evaporator or heater core such as it is in a 124 car, borders on being an engineering crime.

Have a great day,