Ok guys, buddy with an 02 Silverado, 61k miles. been complaining of a rough idle and a very loud "high speed piece of plastic chewing on the front of the engine." Took it to the dealer and he said they told him a catastrophic failure of the AC system. He couldn't remember exact details. Would a compressor puking and sending things downstream could cause the idle problem and maybe the sound he was hearing? $1300 sounded high to me, but I have 0 experience with AC repairs/problems. Trying to get him to get more info on exactly what happened.

Andrew

if the compressor is locking up. Does the system still cool? Does the clutch on the AC cycle? He'd need to check with the hood up to see what the compressor is doing. If debris is in the system I could see it getting caught in the pistons of the compressor and making it sieze. 1300 actually sounds like a decent cost for the dealer to do the work, but if he is able to do it himself he can get away with less than half that. He would need to flush the entire system out, then replace the compressor, dryer and orifice valve. Some hoses have filters built into them as well, he'd need to find out if his hoses do, and if so replace the hoses with the installed filters. No idea if the hose filters are replacable or not, and not all vehicles have them. I didn't know about them myself till I was reading a flyer at O' Reilly's about them. The wife's 89 just threw a compressor this week, and there is metal debris all through the system. Can't tackle it till Sept or Oct though, no money plus I'll be away in Aug.