I bought an '03 with 86k miles a few weeks ago and so far I've had to do a couple of repairs, one of them covered under warranty (radiator was leaking) and the other was pretty much nothing but got me a free inspections at Nissan

now it ends up that my AC compressor and idler pulley need to be replaced according to my dealer (not Nissan but a Dodge Chrysler Jeep dealer) and quoted me at around $1,300 for parts and repair since it's not covered under warranty, what are the odds right?

the AC only makes noise when it's hot out but blows ice cold air, the mechanic at the Mopar service center said that both the compressor and the idler are making noise, he didn't rule out that it might just be the compressor clutch but they woudln't recontruct the AC anyways

I've been trying to find more info on this problem but it seems like most don't have AC compressor problems until they're in the 100k mile range

I find it hard to believe that the AC compressor would be going bad already specially since the car was owned in Georgia most the time, if it would have been owned in South Florida then it would make more sense since there is virtually no winter there

what should I do here? try to get the dealer to cover the costs since I just bought the car? buy used parts and have them installed somewhere or install them myself? only get the pulley fixed and see if that fixes most of the noise problem and risk the compressor going back and ruining the rest of the AC system (according to the mechanic)?

any help and/or advice will be greatly appreciated

 

got the pulley replaced, need to wait until it's hotter out to see if it's still making as much noise but so far it seems like the noise has been reduced to a fraction of what it was

the mechanic that did the job said the pulley was definitely making noise and that there seemed to be nothing wrong with the compressor, fingers crossed

 

noise is not as bad as before but it's still there and it's still noticeable, just going to live with it until the compressor dies

 

That's what I would do....but you could also try to add a can of oil charge to the system, maybe it'll help.