My air condition started acting up about two weeks ago. When I turn on the car, the air condition either works or not. It has been working for the past three days. I know very little about mechanics or air condition. But I think the issue has to be something with a switch or connection that goes on and off. I took it to the dealer today and this is what I got:

Your vehicle needs to replace the a/c blower motor and the front a/c evaporator.
Parts $1,150.00
Labor $2,301.00

I am not sure why a motor that works the majority of the time needs to be replaced. I don’t even know what the a/c evaporator is.

if anyone can help me here, I’ll appreciate it.
I have a 2018 XC60 R Design with 75,000 miles.
Thank you very much

 

The way ACs work is there's a closed loop of refridgerant that is cycled from liquid to gas through compression/decompression. when you compress a gas it heats up so the compressor feeds a consensor to cool it off (that's the front piece by the radiator) which then feeds the evaporator inside the dash. The Evaporator is another radiator which allows the compressed refridgerant to expand, which in turn produces cold. The blower sucks air through the evaporator which is what makes the air cold. Should any of the major components like the condensor, evaporator or seals develop a leak, you'd lose your refridgerant and the system won't produce cold. In fact there is a low pressure sensor which keeps the compressor from engaging to protect it (since the refridgerant contains oils to lubricate the compressor).

So when you said you need a front evaporator, that suggests your system has developed a leak. During diagnostics, the shop will recharge the system with a fluorescent dye to check for leaks and if they are saying you need an evaporator they must have seen some dye leaking out. PS, if they say its the evaporator (not sure of the reference to "front here"), its inside the dash and that's a PITA to replace since the entire dash needs to come apart. My guess is its on the order of 10-15 shop hours which if you take 15 hours x 150 an hour gets you to about $2250 just in labor. Sad to say, this is probably the single most expensive repair on a car short of an engine rebuild.

As to the blower motor - that's just a variable speed fan that sits in the dash. Not sure what is going on but the blower should work on all speed settings regardless of whether the AC kicks on and produces cold. Usually they fail when one or more of the speeds doesn't work. My guess is they ran diagnostics on the ECC computer and spotted some fault codes regarding the blower. The only good news here is if they are taking the dash apart to access the evaporator, they will have easy access to the blower.