Goodwill AC fix on 2011

Wait, what? Let's be realistic here. Eight years old. Eight. Years. I had dealers replace both compressors on our '09s, even though it was just the clutch--I figured it was worth freshening up the whole system in both so they would have eight more years of good service. (They also went through the entire A/C system with a leak tester and replaced a couple of o-rings to seal things up completely.) Both remanufactured compressors have a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty, honored at any Honda dealer in the country, if they fail. Mine was eight model years old when I had it replaced, and the other one failed nine months later (so, nine years old)--I did not ask for, nor did I ever expect, any favors on something that was so long out of warranty.

When we had cars when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, we were lucky if our crappy GMs would even last for eight years, rusting to pieces and running poorly by the time we were done patching them together (despite good maintenance), and usually driven to the junkyard to dispose of them with just shy of 80,000 miles on them.

No, cars shouldn't have problems, but they do. Parts fail. Things break or wear out. It's a way of life. No manufacturer of anything made on this planet has any obligation to offer free or discounted repairs once that warranty ends. (In this disposable society of ours, we aren't even expected to repair anything when it breaks--we're supposed to toss it in the trash and buy a new one.) If a manufacturer helps us out with goodwill, sure, it's a nice gesture but it's not very common at all, and certainly not so far out of warranty.

Threatening to buy other car brands does nothing--we're just trading one set of problems for another. I stick to Hondas and Acuras now, mainly because I am familiar with working on them. There are still a few commonalities between the new '88 Accord I started with, and the '09s we drive now.

Just putting this into perspective.

I hate when that happens, and luckily, it hasn't happened to me more than a couple of times in a lifetime. Eight years is actually not a very good life expectancy for an A/C compressor, though I suppose it should be expected on a reman part. But at the price of a new one? No. Not good. Still, I would replace it only with a new OEM one. But first I'd take it to my trusted mechanic, who will tell me what the real problem is, and it may not be the compressor. If it's just the clutch or the coil those parts are $100-200 and can be replaced without unsealing the charge. Heck, it could even be just a relay. Dealerships will try to sell you a thousand dollar job to fix a twenty dollar problem if they can, because for them it's about sales, not service.

A little advice on Gen3 CR-V A/C systems (and I'd expect the other Gens are similar) - They only hold about 1.8 pounds of Freon, total, fully charged. As these things go, that is a minute amount. Now think about the fact that given that, it would take only a very small amount of leakage to produce conditions that are very hard on the compressor, such as running low enough to short cycle, etc. It would also be very easy for one of these to get overfilled, also a bad thing. So, it might be a very good idea to have the system checked every year, and any problems corrected. Then, you might be able to expect a compressor to last a long, long time. Maintenance, eh?