Is pressurizing it like your saying hard to do? The sniffer you refer to that is probably an expensive device, as well, I suppose. If it had the dye in it like the shop mentioned could it be scanned with an infared light to maybe tell where it dumped all the freon out? A total loss kind of points me in the direction of the A/C compressor, but it is a guess. I tried to go back to the p.o. on the issue before I posted on the issue initially, because on the bill it showed 12mo.'s or 12,000 mile warranty. The p.o. wouldn't concur on doing that at all. All I got was you need to find the problem with it. The reason I mentioned the compressor was on the 1st. time the shop repaired the A/C on the car the bill was 1200 or more, and it showed they replaced the seals in the compressor. The last time was just before I bought the car. The success of a shop doing well on that is very, very slim from my experiences in the past. I wouldn't have accepted that, if it would have been mine.

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Rebe