Reuben

When my local Porsche dealer a.ka. 'stealer' quoted me 15 hrs (@ $90) to replace my A/C evaporator (not including the five - sic - hours they had already spent on diagnostics) I 'phoned around to a number of other official dealers and a few independents to compare labor quotes.

Of the 12 dealers I called the norm was 8.5 hours for the same job, with only one exception (12 hours).

Is anyone out there familiar with Porsche's procedure for establishing labor times for the most common repairs? It would surely be invaluable to be armed with the 'inside scoop' next time when confronted with such - how shall I put this delicately? - inflated labor quotes.

As the saying goes: Forewarned is forearmed.

Reuben

graham_mitchell

Don't ever go the the East London OPC - they're a bunch of clowns, and charge a staggering £90/ $145 for their incompetence

viperbob

15 hours??? Let me guess, they take the car apart AROUND the evaporator. Right? How else could you explain it. Check out this photo.





The evaporator is the aluminum cylindrical thing sitting behind the front drivers side inner fender liner. There are 5 philips head screws, and 4 10 mm nuts to gain access once you remove the front wheel. It is held in with a screw clamp, and one screw, and then it appears to just screw into the manifold.

As I said, if you start by removing the fenders and the door, then you can sneak up on it. Either that or they are charging you 14 hours to charge the system (like one hour is more than enough). So I've got about 2 hours of time here. Too bad, you could have bought that one off eBay, done a DIY, and just brought your car in for a recharge. Think it went of like $70 if I remember correctly. I hate to hear stories like yours.

Where there is mystery, there is MONEY!!!! I hope you can find a reasonable place to do the work at a fair price.

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Hi Reuben:

Since I do this for a living, I might comment here,...

The only thing Porsche does is dictate what they will pay for warranty work labor (not much). Each dealer or independent shop is free to set their own rates and fees based on the local wage rates and their overhead/investment.

Porsche does offer a general guideline about how long something should take to accomplish, but in many cases its not accurate at all, and doesn't reflect the reality of the actual time it requires to do something correctly!
The real differences lie in how every enterprise decides what to charge for a given operation; flat-rate or job time.

All that said, nobody should pay a thing for incompetance or someone learning a procedure on your dime,...

Stevarino

According to Nichol's Chilton Labor Guide Manual 2000 - sort of the industry standard - replacement of the Evaporator Coil, which includes evacuate/recover and recharge for a '95-99 Carrera, should be 8.3 hours. One hour of the 8.3 is for evacuation/recovery and recharging.

There is no category for time allocated to scratching one's head, but it seems five hours is excessive, to say the least.

My mechanic charges $110/hr, but I imagine he's on a steeper learning curve than your guy. I think that's close to what Pacific Porsche charges.

viperbob

OK, so if it is the condensor and you remove the front bumper, that would add 2 hours total time to the project. How many guys here have taken their bumpers on and off a couple of times now. Maybe a 30 minute job off and 30 on. Then an hour to remove condensor in the housing (I had mine out to install a Cargraphic oil cooler) and replace resistor as long as you are there.

The thing that kills me is we can do the jobs as a DIY the first time and yes it takes a long time. We want to be careful and not screw anything up. The next time we do the same job, we can do it in 1/2 to 1/3 the time. We are paying TOP dollar to professionals that in theory are trained and have done these tasks before many times. We wind up paying for a first timer DIY labor effort, at $100+ professional labor rates per hour.

Ok, I'm done ranting. Sorry I just hate to see people here get taken.

Here is the front condensor at the front of the same wheel well BTW. Just happen to have the fender liners out (and the headlight and the washer bottle).





Steve, you and some of the other vendors that post on this board must have a difficult time with these situations. I have always had excellent dealings with you (and I still have not gotten your bill for the rear rotors) and everyone has the utmost respect for your capabilities. When some of these people come to you, they just most be upset at being taken and leary that you just might be another shop out to screw them. I do not envy your job. But keep it up as there are CLEARLY not enough reliable, honest shops out there.

STLPCA

Bob, unless my brain is fogged (always a possibility) that easily accessed cylindrical thing in your pic is the "receiver/drier" NOT the evaporator. The evaporator, which looks like a radiator, is located behind the gas tank, at the firewall & per the shop manual appears to require substantial and real pita time & effort to access & remove it. That is consistent w/posts from the few on the board who have tried it as a DIY & cursed the task.

viperbob

Dan, you are correct and I stand corrected. I was translating from the PET as some of the descriptions for these parts are in German. The manual clearly shows the this as the evaporator located at the firewall in between the fans and pollen filters.

Thanks for clearing up Dan. Sorry for the misleading previous posts.

Reuben

Bob, Dan, Steve,

Thank you guys for your detailed postings and feedback. With the search function disabled, I was not able to trawl the archives for others DIY experiences. That's one of the reasons that I have been reluctant to embark on this project on my own, as I normaly would prefer.

If anyone has changed the evaporator and expansion valve as a DIY, I'd be most interested in seeing a write-up.

Reuben

Bins

I had my evaporator replaced a few weeks ago.

Its is a big job and requires removal of the petrol tank and the evaporator housing. Approx time is min 6 hours, or a day. Can take longer depending on how long it takes to put everything together again (without parts leftover). Definitely requires an A/C specialist.

Afterwards it will require vacuum testing, and regassing.

Reuben

Bob, Dan, Steve,

Thank you guys for your detailed postings and feedback. With the search function disabled, I was not able to trawl the archives for others DIY experiences. That's one of the reasons that I have been reluctant to embark on this project on my own, as I normaly would prefer.

If anyone has changed the evaporator and expansion valve as a DIY, I'd be most interested in seeing a write-up.

Reuben

Roygarth

FYI Current issue of 911 & Porsche World has big article on aircon. Great for people who know nothing eg me!

No affiliation etc.

Piers
993RS

ksimpson

The OPC here in Ireland charge €110 per hour ($130). They are ok at best. They have two guys in the Porsche workshop that appear to be totally overworked.

My car took just over a week for a routine service - they didn't charge me a weeks labour, they had to keep stopping and starting due to the workload in the workshop. I have heard similar stories around the amount of time it takes them to do relatively simple jobs.

Roygarth

Hi Ken

What is 'Gert's Front Protection Bar'?

Thanks
Piers
993RS

Bins

http://www.carnewal-europe.com/cpx_p93070.htm