2004 Chrysler Pacifica My mechanic used some kind of "

2004 CHRYSLER PACIFICA

150,000 MILES • 6 CYL • AWD • AUTOMATIC

BONZ04PACIFICA

MEMBER
1 POST

The Pacifica A/C was not blowing cold air; my shop guy said leaking evaporator; about a 9 hr job; apx. $1000 to fix - would have to take the entire dash out of the car to get at it. Times are really tough right now - just can't afford that repair... figures it's been the hottest summer I can remember.

He said he could try using a "leak stop"... that he's done it many times... be about a 50/50 chance it would fix the problem... nothing ventured, nothing gained... this would be a $150 fix.

I said, sure - go for it. Got it back... been 1 day... so far, so good... blowing cold air, though there is quite a SMELL... maybe it's the leak "stuff"... maybe it's something nasty that the system is clearing from all the time when it was not working?

In 5 minutes of browsing the web about this "leak stop" stuff, I am seeing a lot of bad news about it... I'm worried that I've done the wrong thing letting him put this stuff in my car!

Would love to hear from a few people who are much wiser than me what they think... thoughts?

Aug 7, 2010 at 6:05 PM

MHPAUTOS

✓ASE Certified Mechanic
31,937 POSTS

Hi there,

Thank you for the donation,

I do not advocate the use of any type of magic fit it from a can, these so call cures are only a very temporary stop gap if they work at all, and the problem is that they can do more harm than good, the smell i feel should dissipate over time, but the muck in the system will probably start to break down and fail, at best you may get 1 summer out of it, there is only one way to fix these types of problems and that is replacing the faulty component with a new unit, that way you know that it is done correctly, in this case even a good second hand may be a risk as the evaporator will corrode from the inside out so you will not see if it is near the critical fail point until it is in and in use, as it may or may not fail in a very short time, it is just a rick that i would not want to take due to the cost of the re work to fix it again.

mark (mhpautos)

Aug 8, 2010 at 6:01 AM

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