Little background is a couple years ago the front of my bumper was punctured or should I say sliced by a concrete stair that ultimately puncutred my radiator. I ultimately replaced that and had everything fixed but noticed about a year later my AC wasn't blowing cold anymore. I took it back to the same shop that did the work through insurance because I thought the part had gone bad but what they told me was after doing tests with dye etc and using some device that can smell freon that it apparently is leaking through the vents and that my evaporator core has a crack and is leaking. The question is this shop sucks and the first time they did the work they actually completely forgot to install the new radiator which they got paid to do. I wonder if in their original judgement of the problem from the first damage that they never actually noticed the evaporator core had a crack in it. Really I just want to know because I am not a mechanic is if the evaporator core is near the radiator to the point if the radiator got punctured could it have cracked the evap core?

Either way I ultimately want to refile this with the insurance company I had because it would be part of that claim and I know it's a ridiculous procedure to do. Otherwise im stuck just using those freon cans constantly and DIY on injecting them into the lines.

 

Condensor is in front of the radiator. It literally sits in front of it so any object that punctures the front bumper and damages the radiator logically would have to damage the condensor as well. You need to look through your paperwork and see if the a/c condensor was replaced.

Your evaporator is behind the firewall, inside the dash.

If this is what is actually leaking, it would be more than likely unrelated to the crash damage.


Adding cans of r-134a will slowly kill your aC as refrigerant and oil are leaking out...but younare only replacing refrigerant. You need to have it fixed now properly, otherwise you run the risk of an expensive total A/C system repair if the compressor seizes or moisture onnthe system rusts it out completely.

 

Yeah trying to figure out how many labor hours are involved in this repair and what parts I need to get. Im finding mixed prices on the OEM version of this part. Also I dont know how necessary it is to go with OEM for this part? Any ideas how important that is but given the difficulty of getting to it im concerned with using something cheaper.

 

I'd stick with OEM, but that's just me. I've done A/C work using "Four Seasons" parts with no issues however.

Changing out the evaporator is a little bit labor intensive. Taking apart the dash to get to the core is a bit of work, but it's the A/C side of things that will get costly.

You will need to recover the refrigerant in the system to empty it, replace the core, and then recharge with correct amount of oil indicated by the FSM, pull a vacuum and recharge.

http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/G35/Seda..._Sedan/atc.pdf

 

Get a second opinion and insist on a dye test. I've been told the Freon detectors aren't very good.