It appears that I have a freon leak somewhere in my 1988 300E AC system. The AC system is not cooling and the compressor is not coming on. The compressor does not appear to be bad, a tech did a simple check to confirm that the compressor works. He indicated that the weak point in the system was the evaporator. If the evaporator turns out to be the source of the leak, how big a cost $$ am I facing?

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Tony

'88 300E Pearl Black/light Gray interior

An independent quote me $1,000 (most of it labor) for the evaporator and a change to R134 at the same time. I am a DIY and have the manuals.I did it myself since I paid the local dealership a lot of money in the past for a lousy job arghhh! They will never see me again. So, I figured I could not do worse that they did and kept the R-12 (my preference) but, it is a LOT of work. My AC is working fine right now. I hope it does not change in the future. If you have a GOOD mechanic pay the money and get the "upgraded" evaporator or aftermarket with copper lines.
Good luck!
J.H.
86 300E

MB pays 12 hours to R&R, we add 2-3 hours for preparation sealing recharging and replacing all the vacuum servos (some require near the same labor if done later). At 60 an hour thats $900. The evaporator is $680 MB list but we usually use a copper core aftermarket one that we sell for about $250. The vacuum servos (five different ones) cost anywhere from 18 to 35 dollars each. Drier lists for $88 and we usually use a Hansa or Behr drier for around $70. We could easily offer after market driers for $45 retail. R-12 should be around $100 and changing it about the same. (different oil, fittings labels, extra labor [flushing] and cheaper refrigerant R-134a come to about the same price).

Thats where it goes. I'll tell you that a conscientous tech that is fast but attends to the details can do the job in around six to eight hours. A mediocre tech having not done one in two years will take all of two days to do it right.

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Steve Brotherton
Owner 24 bay BSC
Bosch Master, ASE master L1
26 years MB technician

[This message has been edited by stevebfl (edited 05-24-2000).]