How things change Martin. It's not so long ago that you would use almost any obscure cross-reference part to save a few pennies. I don't now how much a DMCH new air con compressor is, but I bet its more than 30GBP. Obviously a brand new one of anything, is going to be better than a second-hand one. But the second hand ones are on sale or return, so the risks aren't too great. My personal experience of air con compressors (on two different cars) is that they had both seized up. Both on cars that had done less than 1,000 miles each from new. My air con mechanic and friend, Stewart, took it all to bits and discovered that one of the 5 tiny little pistons had seized up, probably due to lack of oil. Stewart tells me that it's not possible to dip the oil and if you overfill them, it also wrecks them. The only way to ensure that the oil level is correct is to empty them, and then re-fill with the proper amount of the correct oil. When he had it apart, he said that it looked just like a Citroen one. Sure enough, it was. All he needed to do was change the end bits over, re-check oil, re-gas and get working, all done in one day and Jolly good value for 100 GBP all in. Even if you had a new one, I would certainly get the oil checked. Quite a few of our boys are on a budget and where 100 may be feasible, perhaps 3 or 4 times as much may not be. Just my 2P Chrispy. -----Original Message----- From: Martin Gutkowski [mailto:webmaster@xxxx] Sent: 05 December 2003 13:12 To: doc-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [doc] 'Black cars' I _personally_ would be wary of secondhand ones. The nature of the ac system is such that the refrigerant is hydroscopic and will absorb water. If key parts such as the compressor have been left open to the atmosphere for any length of time, you could be looking at corroded internals. This is not "based on something I've read" but from the horse's mouth so-to-speak, Darren Bowker. He'll be buying one from DMCH at some point for his 30. They really are the cheapest Martin Chris Parnham wrote: >And fitted to Citroen. > >Readily available S/hand at about 30GBP, I've used one. > >Don't go paying "fancy prices" for one boys. > >CP > > > > > > >. > > > DOC UK Website: www.deloreans.co.uk Unsubscribe: doc-uk-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ** Unless otherwise stated, all messages posted to the group are assumed public and may be printed in the club magazine ** Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/