On Jun 11, 1:50*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 06:08:55 -0700 (PDT), "





wrote:
On Jun 11, 8:57*am, Dottie wrote:
My air conditioner is a Trane. *It was installed in August 2007 and we
have had a routine maint. *service call every year - no problems until
now. *It stopped working sometime Saturday P.M. *I noticed that it was
running constantly but the house was warm -- *so I cut it off. *A man
came yesterday afternoon and the problem is in the part that sits
indoors (as opposed to the compressor which is outside). *It will cost
$1200 to fix....parts and labor. *The temp here was 94 in the house
with the windows opened - and I'm not brave enough to have them open
at night. *Anyway, we only paid a little over $5,000 for the a/c when
new. *The service dept is going to call me today and set a time to
come out and work on it - providing they can get the part without a
problem. *Question -- when is it more economically smarter to just buy
a new a/c and not try to fix the old one. *The part (I was shown) is a
copper part that looks o.k. - it just stopped regulating the freon).
One thing that did tick me off -- the service man who came out was
more interested in selling me a service agreement that would take a
discount off future service calls and parts and include routine
checkups. *I have no idea if I will stay here (recent widow) after the
market improves but I am thinking about trying to get smaller place,
less upkeep, and really don't want a three year service agreement.
Just wondering what you'll thought.

You can buy a whole new high efficiency R410 cased coil
for a 5 ton unit for $700. *Assuming it failed, and leaked,
you'd also need to refill with R410. *The rest would be
labor. *So, $1200 could be a fair price. *But we don't know
the details. *But at 5 years, it should not have failed in the
first place. * Did you read your warranty?

The compressor unit cost could be $1300 to $1800 or
more, again depending on the size and efficiency.
Probably not worth changing that out. *Again, what's the
warranty on that? *If it's working and still covered, I
probably would not get a new one. *The real question
here is what failed
and why. *Two main possibilities are it was defective or
incorrectly installed.

*Was it the "a" coil or the thermal expansion valve *(TXV)? Some units
have them, some don't - but from the OP's description it sounds like
the valve.
A Danfoss TR6 TXV should cost you between $65 and $90 for the
"aftermarket" unit. Most good OEM TXVs are made by Danfoss.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I missed the part about the failure being the part that
regulates the freon. You're right, that would suggest it's
the TXV valve, not the coils. If that's what it is, then the
repair cost is ridiculous. And if the TXV valve failed that
soon, it's probably because the unit wasn't installed
correctly, ie they got crud in the system when brazing.